Hello, I'm James Wood, and this year on the LRB's Close Reading's podcast, I'm asking,

Who's Afraid of Realism? I'll be taking a range of great novels and short stories,

from Flobe's Madame Bovary and Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, up to more recent works

by Amit Chowdhury and Gwendolyn Riley. And I'll be examining what makes and makes

for the real. How does realism produce its effects? What's the difference between artifice

and artificiality? And who is and has been afraid of realism and why? The series starts with

two episodes on Madame Bovary, which you can listen to right now.

And in the third episode, I'll be talking to Adam Thurlwell about Dostoevsky.

You can find a link in the description or search close readings wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, you're listening to the LRB podcast, and I'm your host, Adam Shats.

My guest in this episode is Robert Malley, who served in senior Middle East positions in the Clinton, Obama, and

Biden administrations. Rob is the former CEO of the International Crisis Group. Now he's a lecture

at Yale University's Jackson School of Global Affairs.

In September, Malley published a remarkable book with his friend and colleague, Hussein

Aga, a longtime advisor to the PLO.

Tomorrow is Yesterday, Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel-Palestine.

Their new book is a scathing,

yet also deeply ruminative and probing meditation on the failure of the so-called peace process,

a process in which both Mali and Agha were themselves involved.

On the day after a ceasefire has been agreed by Israel and Hamas, when hopefully Palestinians in Gaza can breathe again,

when both peoples can look forward to the return of their captives, I'm talking to Rob about the ceasefire,

about the Gaza peace plan, Donald Trump, and about the history that brought us to this moment.

...