The Critic and Her Publics

Anna Silman

We try to end each season of The Critic and Her Publics with a little twist on our theme, something different and often risky or uncomfortable. A few years ago, our final

Isaac Chotiner

"I don't understand why people talk to Isaac Chotiner when his reputation precedes him. He's the best interview-assassin at work today, maybe the best ever. I suspect tha

Agnes Callard

"The philosopher Agnes Callard is one of the most genuinely curious thinkers I have ever met. Whether she’s writing about unrequited love, parenting, politics in the clas

Rachel Syme

"Rachel Syme has interviewed all the grand dames of New York and Los Angeles: she's had Cosmos with Carol Burnett, she's accompanied Sarah Jessica Parker to the ballet, s

Orna Guralnik

"Couples therapy. The words alone are enough to send many people running for the hills, but Orna Guralnik—star of Showtime's documentary series Couples Therapy—has people

Sarah Stillman

"Sarah Stillman is a staff writer at The New Yorker and one of the most decorated investigative reporters of her generation. She's won several National Magazine Awards, t

Sheila Heti

"In the fall of 2022, I saw the novelist Shelia Heti give a presentation on her conversations with early AI chatbots. Their names were Eliza, Alice, and George, and they

Chana Joffe-Walt

The new season of The Critic and Her Publics—The Art of the Interview—begins! "Chana Joffe-Walt is a Peabody Award-winning journalist and a producer at This American Lif

Money

In this final episode of Hawthornden's Como Conversazione series for 2025, we’ll confront a subject that the literary world likes to keep subtextual: money. The translato

Judgement

How do we decide which translations are better than others?  In this episode of Hawthornden's Como Conversazione, Jacques Testard of Fitzcarraldo Editions and Adam Levy

Practical Translation: 1,001 Nights

In this episode of Hawthornden's Como Conversazione, another session of practical translation: the reading and comparing of many renditions of one passage, to see how tra

English

In this episode of Hawthornden's Como Conversazione, we discuss the problem of English. What happens when you bring a nation’s literature into its colonizer’s language? I

Shame

In this episode of Hawthornden’s Como Conversazione, the translators discuss the fraught emotional condition of their work: the sense that not only is their work shameful

First Sentences

In this second episode of Hawthornden’s Como Conversazione, we explore beginnings. Anyone who has been around kids knows that a good Lego build starts with a good base. I

Practical Translation: Proust

In the first episode of Hawthornden’s Como Conversazione, we start with an exercise in practical translation: a discussion of seven different English interpretations of o

Leo Carey: "What's Not There"

Leo Carey is a senior editor at The New Yorker. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-m

Yahdon Israel: "Faustian Bargains"

Yahdon Israel is a senior editor at Simon Schuster and founder of Literaryswag, a cultural movement that intersects literature and fashion to make books accessible. He

Ben Calhoun: "Close Listening"

Ben Calhoun is the executive producer of "The Daily" (The New York Times). Previously, he was an editor and producer for This American Life and Serial , and VP of program

Sasha Weiss: "Mischief in the Pages"

Sasha Weiss is a writer and the deputy culture editor at The New York Times Magazine. Previously she was the literary editor at The New Yorker and an editor at The New Yo

Radhika Jones: "Past the Illusion"

Radhika Jones is the fifth editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair. She previously held senior editorial roles at The New York Times, Time, and The Paris Review. She also was the