A Life of One's Own with Xialou Guo

What does it mean, to pursue a life of your own? And what is art and literature's role in figuring out what that might look like? This month we're delighted to be talking to writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo, whose latest book Radical: A Life of My Own is both a personal lexicon and a memoir, which thinks deeply about what it would mean to truly forge a life of one’s own. As we announced on our last minisode, we’re wrapping up Literary Friction at the end of this year, so this is our last author interview. Xiaolu is a really fitting last guest, because of how she thinks about things like language, translation, freedom and radicality through literature, which are many of the themes we’ve returned to again and again over the last decade of shows. Don’t worry though - this isn’t our final episode! We’ll be bringing you a bumper edition of our year in review in a couple of weeks’ time. Recommendations on the theme, A Life of One's Own: Octavia: The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner Carrie: The Wren, The Wren by Anne Enright General Recommendations: Octavia: Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon Xiaolu: Art Monsters by Lauren Elkin, and Humanly Possible by Sarah Bakewell Carrie: Trust by Hernan Diaz Find a list of all recommended books at: Support us on Patreon: Email us: litfriction@gmail.com

You can listen to A Life of One's Own with Xialou Guo online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

A Life of One's Own with Xialou Guo is an episode from Literary Friction by LiteraryFriction.

This episode is 00:59:17 long.

This episode was published on Nov 30, 2023.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Literary Friction when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.