Here’s a ten-minute video interview I did with Kat Banyard four years ago about her book, The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today. I’ve just watched it again and am reminded of how powerfully eloquent she is: Kat Banyard introduces The Equality Illusion from George Miller on Vimeo.
Last week Indian-American novelist Akhil Sharma won the Folio Prize for his novel Family Life. I met Akhil when he visited London last spring to talk about his eagerly awaited second book. Akhil was born in New Delhi and migrated to the US in the late seventies. Having initially pursued a career in investment banking, he came to prominence as a writer in 2001 with his first acclaimed novel, An Obedient Father, which won that year’s Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award (available from Faber). Akhil Sharma was named as one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists in 2007, so expectations around his second novel were considerable, but the process of writing that book was for Akhil a long and painful one – as you’ll hear in this interview, he likens the many drafts the book went through to a war of attrition. It’s testament to Akhil’s skill that the reader is unaware of those years of labour, as she races through the story of Ajay Mishra who, like his creator, came to America aged eight, and …
“The text of Anna Karenina is like a Persian carpet of intricate symmetrical design, whose workmanship can only be appreciated by seeing the reverse side.” Rosamund Bartlett I had the pleasure of chairing Rosamund Bartlett‘s event at the Oxford Literary Festival yesterday afternoon in which she talked about Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, and the experience of producing the first new translation of the novel for Oxford World’s Classics in almost a century. For people who didn’t make it to the event, I thought I would repost this interview I did with Rosamund last summer in my (fledgling) Conversations with Translators series.
“Evolutionary success is not a birthright nor is it a guarantor of survival in perpetuity. Natural selection wrought the living ape species, and like all animals their time on Earth is limited by changing environments, the emergence of competing species, predators, and the like. Some species cope well in a variety of environments. Such generalists are often abundant and hang around for many millions of years. Other species lack such evolved-in versatility. Nearly all of the billions of creatures that have ever lived are now extinct, and the vast majority of ape species are just a few more members of the club. We may some day join them. But until that distant day comes, this Earth is all we have, and the four great apes will be our only extended family. Along with their very distant relatives, dolphins and elephants, they are the most socially complex creatures with whom we share our world.” Craig Standford, Planet without Apes Professor Craig Stanford’s recent book, Planet without Apes (Harvard University Press), looks at the plight of our …
Here’s the second of the series of short films I made with Julian Baggini one hot afternoon last summer. In this one he tackles the vexed question of food and stewardship: Julian Baggini: The Philosopher in the Kitchen – 2. Stewardship: Einkorn bread from George Miller on Vimeo.
Will the fresh revelations about tax evasion through HSBC’s Swiss subsidiary actually lead to any major prosecutions? Previous tax fraud leaks haven’t changed much.
