Season 2 of Success Podcast Is Kicking Off

– The feedback we have gotten on this podcast has been great, and the number of listeners is large and growing. In this uncertain time with travel restrictions, it is wonderful to still be able to offer the slow and thinking conversation that we at the House of Literature value so much, says Linn Rottem, artistic director at the House of Literature.

The House of Literature and author Linn Ullmann launched the podcast How to Proceed in June, in which writers talk to writers. The international podcast offers hour-long conversations with critically acclaimed writers from various countries, about writing, reading, and the world we live in right now.

«An international literary festival, diagnosing the present, directly in your ears,» the Danish weekly Weekendavisen wrote about the podcast. From listeners, too, the feedback has been overwhelming, with characteristivs such as “a gift” and “the polar opposite to a world filled with nonsense and hot air”.

Writers such as Man Booker-winner George Saunders, Ali Smith, National Book Award-winner Joyce Carol Oates, and the poets Terrance Hayes and Mary Ruefle has been guests on the podcast so far.

The writers have all written and talked openly about big questions such as the consequences of migration, racism, Trump, and the pandemic, all with literature as their starting point.

The podcast has already been heard by close to 20 000, with listeners in countries such as the US, the UK, Germany and Australia in addition to the Nordic countries.

A New Season with Guest Interviewers

When the second season of the podcast now kicks off, Ullmann, who is finishing a new novel, will share the interview role with writers Nadifa Mohamed, Kjersti A. Skomsvold and Eivind H. Evjemo. Read more about them below.

– I am so pleased that we keep with the core of this podcast, which is writers talking to writers. With these three guest interviewers, we will have warm and solid interviewers, each with their own literary perspective, says Linn Ullmann.

Together with co-creator Linn Ullmann, the House of Literature has curated a new season of meetings between writers for you to listen in on – among the guests ahead are Indian Arundhati Roy, French Édouard Louis, Canadian Moez Surani and German Jenny Erpenbeck.

In the first episode, released today, Indian Arundhati Roy talks to British-Somali Nadifa Mohamed about fascism and the political climate in India, about her new essay collection Azadi, about fathers, mothers and friendships, and about the connections between filmmaking, architecture and literature.

Listen to the episode here:

– We are incredibly proud of all the guests coming this season, and we can’t wait to share even more wonderful conversations and readings with all who will listen, says CEO of the House of Literature, Susanne Kaluza

– In the first season, we focused particularly on the US, due to the presidential election and the protests that have dominated in the news. This time, we broaden our perspective to a number of international writers who, in different ways, have been affected by and written about the pandemic and the world we live in right now, says artistic director at the House of Literature, Linn Rottem.

 

Introducing 3 guest interviewers:

Nadifa Mohamed (SO/UK) is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Black Mamba Boy, The Orchard of Lost Souls, and the long anticipated The Fortune Men is set to be published next year. She’s appeared on Granta’s list of best young British writers, and teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway University. She is also a dear friend of the House of Literature – and she has visited our stage several times, both as an interviewer and an interviewee, last in conversation with Teju Cole and Valeria Luiselli.

 

Eivind Hofstad Evjemo (NO) is the author of three novels and a poetry collection, and his first novel won the coveted Tarjei Vesaas First Novel prize in Norway. His second novel won the YA Critic’s Prize. Since 2015, he has also edited a yearly anthology introducing new literary voices, and he has interviewed writers such as Olga Tokarczuk, Johannes Anyuru, Jonas Eika and Helle Helle.

 

Kjersti Skomsvold (NO) has written five novels and a poetry collection. Her first novel, The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am, was awarded the Vesaas prize in 2009, was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and has been sold to publishers in more than 25 countries. In 2015, she was awarded the Norwegian and Swedish Dobloug Prize for her full body of work. She has done a number of interviews with international names at the House of Literature, with writers such as Edward St Aubyn, Edouard Louis and Dag Solstad.