Welcome to Literary Friction.

I'm Carrie Plitt, here as always with my co-host, Octavia Bray.

Hi, Octavia.

Hi, Carrie.

I'm very happy to be reintroducing this author special with Ocean Wong.

We first aired this episode back in July 2019,

and it was recorded in the studio when Ocean was on the

international tour for his novel, On Earth, were briefly gorgeous. I was sadly away at the time,

so Octavia flew solo for this interview. It's a really rich and beautiful conversation,

full of the kind of thoughtful insights Ocean is known for, but also a lightness and optimism that

feels just right for summer. And we also thought it would coincide nicely with the publication

of Ocean's latest book, a poetry collection called Time as a Mother, which is out now.

But before we get to the show, because the original episode was an extended cut of the conversation I had with Ocean,

it doesn't include any recommendations. And we did not want to go without shouting out some other

books. Did we carry? We did not. So we're going to tell you about something we read and loved

lately and something we can't wait to read over the summer. Let's start with something you've read and

loved lately. How about you, Octavia? What have you read and loved lately? I recently read the

novel Kairos by the German author Jenny Urbanberg and translated by Michael Hoffman. And it's a

phenomenal book. She's a really, really masterful writer. You know, when you are

in a novel with the writer and you just feel in the safest pair of hands possible. The style is very

tight and very cleverly done, very claustrophobic and it's a story of this complicated love

affair that begins in 1989 in Berlin when the woman

...