Jonathan Safran Foer

Jonathan Safran Foer burst onto the literary scene at the age of twenty five - his first book Everything is Illuminated was playful, experimental and much praised.
Now nearing 40, he's publishing his third novel, Here I Am, which brings together two distinct strands: the story of a disintegrating marriage in Washington, played out against the backdrop of an earthquake in Israel and war in the Middle East.
In a frank and fascinating interview he talks to Mariella Frostrup about combining the two narratives in Here I Am, why he thinks of this as the least autobiographical, but most personal, of his novels, and why it took him ten years to write.