More than 40 publishers rejected the debut novel 'Shuggie Bain' by Scottish Douglas Stuart before it won the Booker prize in 2020. The jury behind the prize called it "destined to become a classic". In this intimate interview  Douglas Stuart tells the story behind the extraordinary novel  of a young queer boy in Glasgow in the 1980ies.  Douglas Stuart was interviewed in August 2021 on stage at the Louisiana Literature festival at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark by editor of...

Meet American writer Jonathan Safran Foer, who reflects on the power of literature in general and poetry in particular. Foer also argues that art always has a personal point of departure, where the artist confronts the world and rearranges it.  Jonathan Safran Foer was interviewed by Synne Rifbjerg at the Louisiana Literature festival at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark in 2012

Experience award-winning Canadian writer Margaret Atwood in this humorous and vivid conversation about her works of elaborate ‘speculative fiction’, and how reality and science fiction are in fact inextricably intertwined. Margaret Atwood was interviewed by Synne Rifbjerg at the Louisiana Literature festival at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark in August 2014.

Meet Peruvian Nobel Prize-winner Mario Vargas Llosa (b.1936), who talks about his literary beginnings and about the inherent power good literature has to make readers aware of another reality: “What we call civilisation is a process that started with this dissatisfaction with the world as it is. Mario Vargas Llosa was interviewed by Christian Lund at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark in June 2019.

“I always move on with the strength of my writing.” In this powerful portrait, South Korean writer Han Kang – winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize – reveals the story of how she became an author, and how writing helps her pierce her distrust in human beings. Han Kang was interviewed by Christian Lund in May 2019 at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark.

“I think a poem really is a statement of desire.” Meet the legendary American poet, writer – and homosexual icon – Eileen Myles. In this interview, Myles discusses the innate power of poetry and how to address the absence of the female genitalia. Eileen Myles was interviewed by the Danish poet Mette Moestrup in August 2017 in connection with the Louisiana Literature festival at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark.

Paul  Auster shares the story of how he became a writer and how he works: “A good day’s work is if I have one typed page at the end of the day, two pages is great, three is a miracle.”Paul Auster was interviewed by Kasper Bech Dyg in Brooklyn, New York,...

Experience American writer Chris Kraus, author of the iconic feminist novel ‘I Love Dick’, in this passionate talk about the apolitical art scene and the challenges of being a woman in our contemporary consumer-focused world.Chris Kraus was interviewed...

70-minute in-depth interview with rocksinger and poet Patti Smith, who speak about her National Book Award winning memoir 'Just Kids' and her life with literature beginning when she was a child : “I thought we didn’t have to grow up. I was heartbroken...

In this extensive interview, American Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Egan takes us through her career as a writer and explains why she considers fiction an invaluable document of our time: “By creating a kind of artefact of the dream-life of our...

”The blood that moves through me right now is my great grandfather's blood, but the reason I know him, is because I read Ulysses” says Irish writer Colum McCann in this interview about James Joyce’s modernist novel.Colum McCann was interviewed by...

Interview with the late Italian novelist Umberto Eco, author behind the bestselling novel ‘The Name of the Rose’. With great warmth and humour Eco shares how he has always taken pleasure in telling stories, and how he came to write his first...

“My writing became ventilation for my frustrations on the art scene.” Meet Norwegian visual artist and writer Matias Faldbakken, who has been described as “one of Scandinavia’s most important and most provoking authors.” In this video, Faldbakken talks...

The award-winning American poet CAConrad here shares the moving story of how, following the brutal murder of his boyfriend and the subsequent indifference of the police, writing poetry conceived from rituals became healing: “I believed that I could do a...

“It is important to be able to write about violence with the same intimacy with which I write about love.” Enjoy this cordial interview with Indian Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy, who discusses writing about modern India and its many internal...

Enjoy this spellbinding performance by Anne Carson, heralded as one of the most important contemporary poets in the English-speaking world. Together with her collaborator, Robert Currie, Carson performs a staged reading of a text that tells creation...

“The urge to create and the urge to copulate are very close.” Watch the iconic feminist writer Erica Jong speak candidly of being fuelled creatively by desire, her experiences as a female writer and what she has come to realize about men.Erica Jong was...

British-Palestinian writer Isabella Hammad has been widely praised for her first novel ‘The Parisian’ (2018). In this video, she talks about Palestine in the fading days of the Ottoman Empire, about nostalgia for the past, and how the novel allows “a...

“I became a writer once I realised no one liked my stuff.” Watch Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey’s favourite author, Pulitzer Prize-winning Colson Whitehead, on how rejections of his first stab at a novel made him realize that he wanted to pursue...

“Religion should be a personal, private issue. The state should not have any religion. This is the only way to achieve democracy.” Watch the world-renowned Egyptian novelist Alaa al-Aswany speak straightforwardly about contemporary Egypt and why a great...

Meet the distinguished writers Taiye Selasi and Colum McCann in this inspiring talk about finding a way to be yourself, a “citizen of elsewhere”, with more than one home and an international identity based on many local experiences.

Meet American poet Ariana Reines, who has been described as one of the crucial voices of her generation. In this video, she talks openly about how extreme familial circumstances “pushed” her into poetry, and how writing lets you enter the deepest levels of experience.

“Anti-black racism is at the core. It is part of what makes America, America,” says the award-winning American poet and writer Claudia Rankine. In this powerful interview, she speaks openly about contemporary America – about Trump, whiteness as “a...

“The best I can do is to try and observe how class, as a very broad social structure, impacts our personal and intimate lives.”To what extent can a writer accommodate an economic and social philosophy to a novel? The Irish literary sensation Sally...