The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast

Mike chats with S. Shakthidharan (or Shakthi) about Hilda Rosner's translation of Siddhartha, Herman Hesse's classic novel of self-discovery and enlightenment. S. Shakthidharan was born in Sri Lanka and raised in Sydney, Australia, where he currently lives. His plays include Counting and Cracking (with Eamon Flack) and The Wrong Gods. Shakthidharan is the recipient of the Green Room Award for Outstanding New Australian Writing (2024) and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and Prize for Drama (2020), among other honors.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mike talks with 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction recipient Gwendoline Riley about Mark Van Doren's rangy, American, and endlessly-re-readable Shakespeare. Plus, a good Top 5 list of Shakespeare's plays!Gwendoline Riley was born in London. She is the author of seven novels, including First Love, My Phantoms, and most recently, The Palm House.   In 2018, the Times Literary Supplement named her one of the twenty best British and Irish novelists working today. She won the 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction.The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast is a production of Literary HubHosted by Michael KelleherTheme music by Dani LencioniProduced and edited by Drew BroussardSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

To kick off the new season of The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast, host and prize director Michael Kelleher is joined by Tongo Eisen-Martin, recipient of a 2025 Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry, to discuss Ayi Kwei Armah's 1979 novel The Healers. Tongo Eisen-Martin was San Francisco’s eighth Poet Laureate (2021-2024). He is the author of three collections of poetry: Blood on the Fog (2021), selected by the New York Times as among the Best Poetry of 2021; Heaven is All Goodbyes (2017); and Someone’s Dead Already (2015). He has taught creative writing in prisons and is the author of We Charge Genocide Again, a series of lessons plans to support students and teachers in grappling with the state-sanctioned killing of Black people. A recipient of several awards including the American Book Award (2018), a California Book Award (2018), and the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award (2018), Eisen-Martin earned both his BA and MA from Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mike chats with Dionne Brand, recipient of a 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction, about the timely power of José Saramago's Seeing.READING LIST:Seeing by José Saramago, tr. Margaret Jull Costa • Blindness by José Saramago, tr. Margaret Jull Costa • Saramago's Nobel LectureDionne Brand is the award-winning author of twenty-three books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Her twelve books of poetry include Land to Light On; thirsty; Inventory; Ossuaries; The Blue Clerk: Ars Poetica in 59 Versos; and Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems. Her six works of fiction include At the Full and Change of the Moon; What We All Long For; Love Enough; and Theory. Her nonfiction work includes Bread Out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging. Brand is the recipient of numerous literary prizes, among them the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Toronto Book Award, the Trillium Book Prize, the OCM Bocas Prize, and the 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. She is the Editorial Director of Alchemy, an imprint of Knopf Canada, and University Professor Emerita at the University of Guelph. She lives in Toronto, Canada.The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast is a program of The Windham-Campbell Prizes, which are administered by Yale University Library's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast is a co-production between The Windham-Campbell Prizes and Literary Hub. Music by Dani Lencioni, production by Drew Broussard, hosted by Michael Kelleher.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

André Alexis (recipient of a 2017 Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction) joins Michael Kelleher to kick off the 2025 winter season of the podcast with a vibrant discussion of Martha Baillie's memoir, There Is No Blue. TW: the book and this episode include discussion of suicide and abuse.Reading list: There Is No Blue by Martha Baillie • The Search for Heinrich Schlögel by Martha Baillie • Falling Hour by Geoffrey D. Morrison • Finnegans Wake by James JoyceFor a full episode transcript, click here.André Alexis was born in Trinidad and grew up in Canada. His novel, Fifteen Dogs, won the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His debut novel, Childhood, won the Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His other books include Pastoral (nominated for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize), Asylum, Beauty and Sadness, Ingrid & the Wolf, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa, and Lambton, Kent and Other Vistas: A Play. His new book, Other Worlds: Stories, is out from FSG in May.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

m. nourbeSe philip (winner of a 2024 Windham Campbell Prize for Poetry) talks with Prize Director Michael Kelleher about Kamau Brathwaite's tremendous collection, Born to Slow Horses, the lineage of Brathwaite's complex and playful work, and her own poetic connections to Brathwaite's writing.Reading list: Born to Slow Horses by Kamau Brathwaite • Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys • The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon • The Tempest by William Shakespearem. nourbeSe philip is an internationally renowned poet, novelist, playwright, and essayist. Across her diverse and rich body of work, philip has constantly and deeply engaged with the complexities of art, colonialism, identity, and race, with a particular interest in forgotten and suppressed histories. Born in Woodlands, Moriah, Trinidad and Tobago in 1947, she is the recipient of many honors, including the Molson Prize (2021), the PEN/Nabokov Award for International Literature (2020), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1990), philip was educated at the University of the West Indies and earned graduate degrees in law and political science from the University of Western Ontario. Her writing has featured in numerous anthologies, including the Oxford Book of Stories by Canadian Women in English (2000) and International Feminist Fiction (1992), among others. She lives in Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.