Satire with Pola Oloixarac

Literary Friction

Arts

4.9 • 593 Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2022

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We love a good satire here at LF, so we're thrilled this month to bring you a show dedicated to the form. Argentine writer and novelist Pola Oloixarac joined us from Barcelona to talk about her latest novel Mona, which has been translated from Spanish by Adam Morris. It's the story of a young Peruvian novelist invited to Sweden, where she's in the running for one of the most prestigious literary awards in Europe. There, she has a number of hilarious run-ins with authors from all over the world, but lurking beneath the surface is a memory of violence which cannot be fully suppressed. It's a biting and very funny satire of the literary world, so in honour of Mona this show is all about our favourite satirical work, from The Master and the Margarita to Catch 22. We'll get into what we think makes satire successful, and also some of the times it can fall flat, plus all the usual recommendations. Enjoy! Recommendations on the theme, Satire: Octavia: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov Carrie: Catch 22 by Joseph Heller General Recommendations: Octavia: The Liars' Club by Mary Karr Pola: Borges by Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated by Valerie Miles (NY Review of Books) Carrie: Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy Find a list of all recommended books at: https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/mar-2022-satire-with-pola-oloixarac Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/litfriction Email us: litfriction@gmail.com Tweet us & find us on Instagram: @litfriction This episode is sponsored by Picador: https://www.panmacmillan.com/picador

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Literary Friction.
0:24.5	I'm Carrie Plitt, here as always with my co-host Octavia Bright.
0:26.6	Hi, Octavia. How are you?
0:27.8	Hi, Carrie.
0:32.6	I'm actually great because yesterday I got bangs.
0:34.5	Bangs, not banged.
0:40.6	Why are you using the American term? Because I'm talking to you and I want, you know, I want to make it easy.
0:47.5	Okay, well, great. I've seen a picture. They look great. Thank you. Yeah. I got a fringe for all of our English listeners. A curtain fringe, I believe it's called. And it's been a long time since I shook up my hairstyle. I used to have a fringe for years and then I
0:55.4	grew it out and now it's back and it feels great and I just was reminded that sometimes a little
1:00.6	mix-up of your look can be a fabulous new lease of life, can't it? Like a great new haircut. I felt good.
1:06.3	I left the salon with a spring of my step and I've been flicking my hair all day.
1:13.9	It's thrilled for you. How about you? How are you doing?
1:19.7	Well, my thoughts on bangs are as follows. I love bangs and I had bangs for a little while. Actually, when we knew each other maybe. Yeah, you did. But they really don't, they really don't work with my hair because
1:25.6	it's too thick and it curls and it just
1:28.0	looks bad. So I'm very jealous. You have high maintenance hair for a fringe. That's true.
1:34.2	You'd need to do it every morning. Yeah. And I did not when we knew each other. I remember it
1:40.7	being a very cute look actually. Oh, thank you, but it was not. But it's okay.
1:45.4	I'm okay.
1:46.2	As we're recording this, I'm still recovering from COVID, and I'm just at the board stage now. Like, I'm tired, but not tired enough to be totally zonked out, and I'm stuck in my house, and I just want to be done with it. But I'm glad to be here with you and, you know, feeling well enough to record, which is a blessing.
2:03.2	It is, but it sucks that you've been sick. and I just want to be done with it. But I'm glad to be here with you and, you know, feeling well
2:01.0	enough to record, which is a blessing. It is, but it sucks that you've been sick. And I'm just going to say,
2:06.6	again, I think I said it on the miniser. I'm going to say it here too. Thank you so much for doing it
	...

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