Kurt talks to Michael Silverblatt about “Bagombo Snuff Box” and his life’s work. Broadcast Nov 11 1999. KCRW own the audio. (via Doug Tarnopol)
Category: Literature
Gore Vidal’s Gore Vidal – BBC Omnibus 1995
Gore Vidal’s Gore Vidal is a BBC Omnibus documentary first screened in 1995. The two part film biography covers Vidal’s life by visiting scenes from his past.
Episode One
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Norman Mailer: The Naked and the Dead
The following is a documentary on Norman Mailer’s classic, The Naked and the Dead.
The Role of Tom Rob Smith in Brand Israel
Tom Rob Smith is grappling with some serious philosophical questions these days. He asks himself what the purpose of fiction is? What the role of the writer in society is?
What prompted the popular writer to go back to his Cambridge roots and rehash this very Humanities 101 debate? Why the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement of course!

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Gore Vidal on Italo Calvino
Gore Vidal sat down with Riz Khan to discuss Italo Calvino, whom Vidal describes as “the only great writer of my time”. Vidal’s essay on Calvino is available here.
John Steinbeck’s Nobel Speech
‘I am here not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.’
Fighting Words: Norman Mailer explains the hipster
From the CBC Digital Archives. (h/t Waqas Mirza)
Vodpod videos no longer available.
In a departure from the usual Fighting Words format, American author Norman Mailer sits down for an in-depth discussion of “hip.” Mailer, a self-proclaimed philosopher of hip, teaches host Nathan Cohen about the differences between hips and squares, and discovers the true meaning of hip as the two men chain-smoke their way through this wonderful 1960 interview. Be there or be square.
The Romantics — Eternity
This is the third part of a three part BBC documentary series on the Romantics, hosted by Peter Ackroyd. You can also watch the first episode ‘Liberty‘ and the second, ‘Nature‘.
Peter Ackroyd reveals how the radical ideas of liberty that inspired the French Revolution opened up a world of possibility for great British writers such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, inspiring some of the greatest works of literature in the English language. Their ideas are the foundations of our modern notions of freedom and their words are performed by David Tennant, Dudley Sutton and David Threlfall.
The Romantics — Nature
This is the second part of a three part BBC documentary series on the Romantics, hosted by Peter Ackroyd. You can now watch the first part ‘Liberty’ here, and the third, ‘Eternity‘.
Peter Ackroyd summons the ghosts of the Romantics to tell the story of man’s escape from the shackles of industry and commerce to the freedom of nature.
The Romantics — Liberty
This is the first in a three part BBC documentary series on the Romantics, hosted by Peter Ackroyd. You can now also watch ‘Nature‘, the second part of this series, and ‘Eternity‘, the third.
Peter Ackroyd reveals how the radical ideas of liberty that inspired the French Revolution opened up a world of possibility for great British writers such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, inspiring some of the greatest works of literature in the English language. Their ideas are the foundations of our modern notions of freedom and their words are performed by David Tennant, Dudley Sutton and David Threlfall.