About this episode

Laurent Binet discusses his novel HHhH, exploring the intersection of history and fiction in storytelling.

Harriett Gilbert welcomes the French author Laurent Binet to the World Book Club studio to answer your questions about his acclaimed novel HHhH. The book tells the story of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, and the daring mission carried out by Czech resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Prague. At the same time, Binet places himself into the narrative, obsessively questioning how history should be told, where fact ends and fiction begins, and whether a writer ever has the right to blur that line. Recorded in front of a live audience at The American Library in Paris, Laurent will be answering your questions about blending history and fiction without betraying the truth, why he chose to make himself writing part of the story itself, and how storytelling is an attempt to confront, or make sense of, the darkest moments in history.

People in this episode

Host: Harriett Gilbert

Guest: Laurent Binet

Topics covered

• historical fiction
• Holocaust
• Czech resistance
• storytelling
• narrative techniques
• blurring fact and fiction

Keywords

• Laurent Binet
• HHhH
• historical narrative
• Reinhard Heydrich
• Czech resistance fighters
• storytelling techniques
• Holocaust literature

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: HHhH

Places: Czech, Nazi-occupied Prague, The American Library in Paris

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