Standard Podcast [30:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ilan Stavans
(Photo by Frank Ward)

In honor of Hispanic History Month, WGBH radio, an NPR station in Boston, broadcast this ThoughtCast interview with Ilan Stavans twice. It was also picked up by KRZA, an NPR station in Alamosa, Colorado.
Click here for details

Ilan Stavans, the renowned critic of Latino and Latin American literature and culture, and the author of the controversial dictionary, “Spanglish,” is also a perpetual outsider. A Mexican-Jewish-American, Ilan lives simultaneously in many cultures, while truly belonging to none. He calls himself a chameleon, and perhaps this status is just what it takes to be a true critic.

Click here to read a review of the interview on PRX.

Click here to listen to a lecture by Ilan Stavans on “Spanglish: The New American Language” on the WGBH Forum Network.

 

 Standard Podcast [7:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Kevin Smokler

Kevin Smokler, the author, critic and literary blogger, has recently edited a book of essays called “Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times.” Its aim is to remind the world of the relevance of reading, eh, books. Not just summaries of books, or book reviews, or headlines about books, but the real thing. No matter if the book is a bunch of cartoons, the latest supermarket bodice buster, or issued from the Apple PowerBook of yet another disaffected kid from Brooklyn — you know, the one with the rectangular glasses, pale skin and perfectly uncoiffed hair.

It’s all good to Kevin, and who can disagree with him. He spoke with ThoughtCast shortly before he took the mike at the Harvard Book Store.

Click here: (7:18 minutes) to listen to the interview.

And here’s Bookmark Now, the Talk! (34 minutes.)
It features Kevin, naturally, and also Paul Collins, the author of Sixpence House and Not Even Wrong: Adventures in Autism.