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.

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

My guest on this episode is the filmmaker SEPA De F, whose powerful documentary Put Your Soul in Your Hand and Walk was recently released. The film is a portrait of Fatma

Hasona, a 24-year-old photographer whose work documented the experiences of Palestinians during

the destruction of Gaza and underscored their dignity, humanity, and tenacity in the face of unspeakable atrocities.

Hasona was killed, along with six members of her family, in an Israeli airstrike on April 16th of this year, only a day after Farsi informed her that the film had been selected for

the Cannes Film Festival. She was one of hundreds of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza.

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is a devastating film and a beautiful one too, and I urge

all of our listeners to see it. SEPA de Farsi, an Iranian filmmaker based in

Paris, is joining us from Hiroshima, where she was just presenting the film. Sepaday, thank

you for joining us.

Thank you for having me, Adam. Hi.

What time is it there?

9 p.m. just about.

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