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Episode details

Radio 4,12 Sep 2016,28 mins

Jonathan Safran Foer

Open Book

Available for over a year

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.

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