Podcast appearances and mentions of deborah treisman

Edwidge Danticat joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Two Men Arrive in a Village,” by Zadie Smith, which was published in The New Yorker in 2016. Danticat, a MacArthur Fellow and a winner of the Vilcek Prize in Literature, has published six books of fiction, including “Breath, Eyes, Memory,” “The Farming of Bones,” “Claire of the Sea Light,” and “Everything Inside.” Her memoir “Brother, I'm Dying” won the National Book Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, among others. She has been publishing fiction and nonfiction in The New Yorker since 1999. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Yiyun Li joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “The Piano Tuner's Wives,” by William Trevor, which was published in The New Yorker in 1995. Li has published eight books of fiction, including the novels “Must I Go” and “Book of Goose,” a winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and the story collection “Wednesday's Child,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2024. A new nonfiction work, “Things in Nature Merely Grow,” will be published this month. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

David Wright Faladé joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Lu, Reshaping,” by Madeleine Thien, which was published in The New Yorker in 2021. Falade is the author of the novels “Black Cloud Rising” and “The New Internationals,” and the nonfiction work “Fire on the Beach: Recovering the Lost Story of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers.” He's been publishing fiction and nonfiction in The New Yorker since 2020. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Paul Theroux joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “The Necklace,” by V. S. Pritchett, which was published in The New Yorker in 1958. Theroux's nonfiction books include “The Great Railway Bazaar” and “On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey.” A winner of the James Tait Black Award and the Whitbread Prize, he has published thirty-nine books of fiction, including the novels “The Mosquito Coast” and “Burma Sahib” and the story collections “Mr. Bones” and “The Vanishing Point,” which came out earlier this year. He has been publishing fiction and nonfiction in The New Yorker since 1979. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher are joined by Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor at The New Yorker and host of The New Yorker's Fiction podcast. Deborah is the editor of a new anthology of short stories, A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker, 1925-2025, which features some of the incredible writers that The New Yorker has published over the past 100 years. There are stories by J.D. Salinger, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark, Vladimir Nabokov, Jamaica Kincaid, Mary Gaitskill, Don DeLillo and Zadie Smith and many, many more. Deborah discusses how she put the collection together and how she thinks about the short story as a form.

My conversation with The New Yorker fiction editor of 20+ years, Deborah Treisman. Topics included: the "egoless" midwifery of editing; common traits among the famous writers she's known (obsessiveness and dedication are hallmarks); and anecdotes of the late David Foster Wallace. Order Mark's novel Bunyan and Henry. All episodes of The Thoughtful Bro aired live originally on A Mighty Blaze. The Thoughtful Bro is proudly sponsored by Libro.fm and Writer's Bone.

Kate Wolf and Medaya Ocher are joined by Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor at The New Yorker and host of The New Yorker's Fiction podcast. Deborah is the editor of a new anthology of short stories, "A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker, 1925-2025," which features some of the incredible writers that The New Yorker has published over the past 100 years. There are stories by J.D. Salinger, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark, Vladimir Nabokov, Jamaica Kincaid, Mary Gaitskill, Don DeLillo and Zadie Smith and many, many more. Deborah discusses how she put the collection together and how she thinks about the short story as a form.

David Remnick talks with The New Yorker's literary guiding lights: the fiction editor Deborah Treisman and the poetry editor Kevin Young. Treisman edited “A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker,” and Young edited “A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker,” both of which were published this month.  “When you asked me to do this,” Young remarks to David Remnick, “I think my first response was, I've only wanted to do this since I was fifteen. . . . It was kind of a dream come true.” Treisman talks about the way that stories age, and the difficulty of selecting stories. “The thing to remember is that even geniuses don't always write their best work right right off the bat. People make a lot of noise about rejection letters from The New Yorker that went to famous writers, or later-famous writers. And they were probably justified, those rejections.”

Anne Enright joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Sierra Leone,” by John McGahern, which was published in The New Yorker in 1977. Enright, a winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and the Man Booker Prize, among others, has published eleven books of fiction, including the story collection “Yesterday's Weather” and the novels “Actress” and “The Wren, The Wren.” She has been publishing fiction in The New Yorker since 2000. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Jennifer Egan joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Kat,” by Margaret Atwood, which was published in The New Yorker in 1990. Egan's books of fiction include “The Keep,” “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” “Manhattan Beach,” and “The Candy House.” She is a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, among other honors. She has been publishing fiction and nonfiction in The New Yorker since 1989. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Ayşegül Savaş joins Deborah Treisman to discuss “An Abduction,” by Tessa Hadley, which was published in The New Yorker in 2012. Savaş has published three novels, “Walking on the Ceiling,” “White on White,” and “The Anthropologists,” and one nonfiction book, “The Wilderness,” an essay and memoir about the first forty days of motherhood. A collection of stories, “Long Distance,” will come out in 2025. She has been publishing fiction in The New Yorker since 2019.

Aleksandar Hemon joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” by ZZ Packer, which was published in The New Yorker in 2000. Hemon, a winner of a MacArthur Fellowship and a PEN/W. G. Sebald Award, among others, is the author of eight books, including the novels “The Lazarus Project” and “The World and All It Holds,” the story collection “Love and Obstacles,” and two nonfiction works, “The Book of My Lives” and “My Parents: an Introduction.”Share your thoughts on The New Yorker's Fiction Podcast. As a token of our appreciation, you will be eligible to enter a prize drawing up to $1,000 after you complete the survey.https://selfserve.decipherinc.com/survey/selfserve/222b/76152?pin=1&uBRANDLINK=4&uCHANNELLINK=2

Rebecca Makkai joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “The Third and Final Continent,” by Jhumpa Lahiri, which was published in The New Yorker in 1999. Makkai is the author of the story collection “Music for Wartime” and the novels “The Borrower,” “The Hundred Year House,” “The Great Believers,” for which she won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and “I Have Some Questions for You,” which was published last year. 

Louise Erdrich joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Haunting Olivia,” by Karen Russell, which was published in The New Yorker in 2005. Erdrich's novels include “The Round House,” which won the National Book Award in 2012, and “The Night Watchman,” which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2021. She will publish a new novel, “The Mighty Red,” this fall.

David Sedaris joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Love Letter,” by George Saunders, which was published in The New Yorker in 2020. Sedaris is the author of more than a dozen books of essays, memoirs, and diaries, including, most recently, “A Carnival of Snackery” and “Happy-Go-Lucky.”

Nathan Englander joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Every Night for a Thousand Years,” by Chris Adrian, which was published in The New Yorker in 1997. Englander is the author of five books of fiction, including the novel “kaddish.com” and the story collection “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank,” which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2013. 

André Alexis joins Deborah Treisman for a special tribute to Alice Munro, who died in May at age ninety-two. Alexis reads and discusses “Before the Change,” by Munro, which was published in The New Yorker in 1998. Alexis's works of fiction include “Fifteen Dogs,” which won the Giller Prize, “Days by Moonlight,” and the story collection “The Night Piece,” which was published in 2020.

Thank you to the following people: Mary Bergman, Maureen Clarke, Lola Deneault, Hank Deneault, Erica George, Alena Graedon, Gabrielle Griffis, Andrew Leland, Julia Madsen, Sanchia Semere, Peter Semere, Akhil Sharma, Gary Shteyngart, Deborah Treisman, Jackie Welham We miss you, Gabe. Thank you for being our teacher and forever a student of life and the craft. -Jude Brewer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The word “story” often comes after the word “bedtime,” and for good reason. Stories can frighten us, disturb and shock us, prompt us to change our thinking, but compared to most experiences, reading a story is tranquil. Podcasts, similarly conveying mediated encounters with other lives, are also used as sleep aids (there's a “sleep” category in Apple Podcasts). Story podcasts, then, can demonstrate powerfully the connections between fiction and sleep. This episode—the concluding episode of The Cosmic Library's season on the short story in the U.S.—examines those connections. Deborah Treisman says in this episode, of the observation that her own New Yorker Fiction podcast can soothe its listeners, “When people say they use my podcast to fall asleep, it feels slightly insulting. But there is something about being read to, and we all really love it. And it takes us back to childhood, and it is soothing.” Fiction's capacity for tranquil transport isn't about boredom, either. Stories vanquish boredom, taking audiences on adventures into something beyond their immediate experience. And often, stories don't even reassure us. Andrew Kahn points out here that “with the short story, in a way the whole plot can come down to irony, which leaves a situation unresolved, open, something to think about rather than all tied up.” The calming effect and the strange openness of stories can have, it turns out, everything to do with each other. With some of the most ambitious literature, as Deborah Treisman says, “you are being taken somewhere else in the way that you are in dreams, and you have no option but to sort of respond to it as you would in a dream.” Guests: Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker Becca Rothfeld, critic at The Washington Post and author of All Things Are Too Small Justin Taylor, author of Reboot Andrew Kahn, author of The Short Story: A Very Short Introduction Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“If my college-age self, reading White Noise, had thought I would one day be discussing word placement with Don DeLillo, I would have had a heart attack,” Deborah Treisman says in this episode. Since those days, in her role as fiction editor at The New Yorker, she has indeed discussed word placement with Don DeLillo, whose stories include “Midnight in Dostoyevsky” and “The Itch.” Treisman has helped bring that kind of story to a wide audience—it's all part of her work at the center of one of the major institutions in the history of American fiction. In this episode, then, we talk about The New Yorker and other forces sustaining short stories. As unruly and unclassifiable as short stories can be, they often live in some august realms: in The New Yorker, for example, or major MFA programs. And elite organizations tend not to do well with unruliness or unclassifiability. But when it comes to short stories, the great achievements of literary institutions have come from the pursuit rather than restriction of short fiction's possibilities. Those possibilities are frequently found far from the publishing industry's hubs: Tayari Jones describes, for instance, how writers can do their best work by leaving the publishing capital of New York City for home, wherever it may be (Atlanta, in her case). Thriving U.S. institutions with a commitment to short stories all rely, in some way, on voices and tendencies beyond those institutions. The New Yorker, says the literary scholar Andrew Kahn, “for a long time has had a very, very diverse and interesting and jumbled-up catalog.” And the writer Justin Taylor says, of MFA programs, “the institutions are not the ivory towers they think they are. They're deeply reflective of the cultures that are producing them.”  Guests: Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage Becca Rothfeld, critic at The Washington Post and author of All Things Are Too Small Justin Taylor, author of Reboot Andrew Kahn, author of The Short Story: A Very Short Introduction Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Bezmozgis joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Likes,” by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, which was published in The New Yorker in 2017. Bezmozgis is a filmmaker and writer. He has published two story collections and two novels, “The Free World,” which was a finalist for the Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize, and “The Betrayers,” which won the National Jewish Book Award. He was also chosen as one of The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 in 2010.

The Cosmic Library has always followed notions, tangents, and moods prompted by books that can never be neatly summarized or simply decoded. This new season is no exception. Still, there's a difference: we're prompted now by more than one major work. In season five, we're talking about short stories in the United States. You'll hear from New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman, the novelist Tayari Jones, Washington Post critic Becca Rothfeld, the writer Justin Taylor, the Oxford scholar of short stories Andrew Kahn, and the actor Max Gordon Moore. And you'll hear a reading of a Nathaniel Hawthorne story that will add an exciting new dimension to your reality. Deborah Treisman in this first episode clarifies both the challenge and the promise of our subject. She says, “The term itself, 'American short story,' is slightly problematic, just because there are so many people in the U.S. writing short stories who perhaps came from somewhere else, who have a different heritage, whatever else it is—they're not playing into this tradition of Updike and Cheever and so on." Short stories in the United States tell us something way beyond any straightforward national narrative. "What's around right now is such multiplicity," Treisman says, "that it's rare to find a story that you would think of as classically American.” Contemplating multiplicity is part of the mission here in season five. We're talking about expansive range, about the uncontainable proliferation sustained by brevity. Short fiction, it turns out, can launch you into maximal excess just as novels can—and much more swiftly. Guests: Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at The New Yorker Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage Becca Rothfeld, critic at The Washington Post and author of All Things Are Too Small Justin Taylor, author of Reboot Andrew Kahn, author of The Short Story: A Very Short Introduction Max Gordon Moore, actor—with Broadway credits including Indecent and The Nap Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The trailer is here for the new season of The Cosmic Library! This five-episode season concerns a subject both smaller and vaster than any massive book, and that subject is: short stories in the United States. You'll hear how short stories exceed their own brevity and meld with a reader's mind; you'll hear about the history of the short story across continents; you'll hear how stories are edited at The New Yorker; and you'll hear a thrilling reading of the cosmically bewildering “Wakefield,” a classic story by Nathaniel Hawthorne in which this guy moves next door and hides out for twenty years. Guests include The New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman, Oxford scholar Andrew Kahn, Washington Post critic Becca Rothfeld, the novelist (and writer of short stories) Justin Taylor, and the actor Max Gordon Moore. Find it at Lit Hub or wherever you go for podcasts—new episodes will be released weekly, starting April 24th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Bezmozgis joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Likes,” by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, which was published in The New Yorker in 2017. Bezmozgis is a filmmaker and writer. He has published two story collections and two novels, “The Free World,” which was a finalist for the Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize, and “The Betrayers,” which won the National Jewish Book Award. He was also chosen as one of The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 in 2010.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Daniel Kahneman has died, published by DanielFilan on March 27, 2024 on LessWrong. He was 90 years old. His death was confirmed by his stepdaughter Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor for the New Yorker. She did not say where or how he died. The obituary also describes an episode from his life that I had not previously heard (but others may have): Daniel Kahneman was born in Tel Aviv on March 5, 1934, while his mother was visiting relatives in what was then the British mandate of Palestine. The Kahnemans made their home in France, and young Daniel was raised in Paris, where his mother was a homemaker and his father was the chief of research for a cosmetics firm. During World War II, he was forced to wear a Star of David after Nazi German forces occupied the city in 1940. One night in 1941 or '42, he later recalled, he stayed out past the German-imposed curfew for Jews while visiting a friend, and he turned his sweater inside out to hide the star while he walked a few blocks home. He then crossed paths with a soldier in the SS, who called Daniel over, picked him up - and hugged him. "I was terrified that he would notice the star inside my sweater," Dr. Kahneman noted in a biographical essay for the Nobel Prize ceremonies. But the German pulled out his wallet, showed him a photo of a boy, gave him some money and sent him on his way. "I went home more certain than ever that my mother was right," Dr. Kahneman said in the essay. "People were endlessly complicated and interesting." Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org

Greg Jackson joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Safari,” by Jennifer Egan, which was published in The New Yorker in 2010. Jackson has published a story collection, “Prodigals,” and a novel “The Dimension of a Cave,” which was one of The New Yorker's Best Books of 2023. He has been publishing in the magazine since 2014.

Sterling HolyWhiteMountain joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Labyrinth,” by Roberto Bolaño, translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews, which was published in The New Yorker in 2012. HolyWhiteMountain is a Jones Lecturer at Stanford, and grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana.

In the two hundredth episode of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, Rivka Galchen joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “The Bees, Part 1,” by Aleksandar Hemon, which was published in The New Yorker in 2002. Galchen's books include the story collection “American Innovations” and the novel “Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch.”

Teju Cole joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “1=1,” by Anne Carson, which was published in The New Yorker in 2016. Cole's novels include “Open City” and “Tremor,” which was published this year.

Margaret Atwood joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Varieties of Exile,” by Mavis Gallant, which was published in The New Yorker in 1976. Atwood is the author of more than forty books of poetry and fiction, including the novels “The Handmaid's Tale” and “The Testaments” and the story collection “Old Babes in the Wood,” which was published earlier this year. This is the first episode of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast to be recorded in front of a live audience. It was taped at the Hot Docs podcast festival, in Toronto, on October 21, 2023.

Lucinda Rosenfeld joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Returns,” by Annie Ernaux, translated from the French by Deborah Treisman, which was published in The New Yorker in 20233. Rosenfeld is the author of five novels, including “I'm So Happy for You” and “Class.”

Andrew O'Hagan joins Deborah Treisman to discuss “An Actor Prepares,” by Donald Antrim, which was published in The New Yorker in 1999. O'Hagan is the author of six novels, including “The Illuminations” and “Mayflies,” which was published in 2020 and won the Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize.

In July, The New Yorker published its thirtieth story by Tessa Hadley—a higher count that of any other fiction writer in the past two decades. On a recent episode of the New Yorker Radio Hour, the fiction editor Deborah Treisman spoke with Hadley about her genesis as a fiction writer. Hadley's latest story collection is “After the Funeral.”

The New Yorker first published a short story by Tessa Hadley in 2002. Titled “Lost and Found,” it described a friendship between two women who had been close since childhood.  Hadley's fiction is often consumed with relationships at this scale: tight dramas close to home. She captures, within these relationships, an extraordinary depth and complexity of emotion. The New Yorker recently published its thirtieth story from Hadley—a higher count than any other fiction writer in recent times. That figure is particularly remarkable because Hadley had such a late start to her career, publishing her first work of fiction in her forties. She talks with the New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman about her long struggle to stop imitating the writing of others, instead telling stories authentic to her own experience and voice. “I was just a late developer, and I was trying to write other people's novels for all that time,” she says. Treisman also asks Hadley about why her work has been labelled “domestic fiction” by many critics. The term is disproportionately applied to female writers, and “tends to have a bit of condescension to it,” Hadley says. But she is willing to at least consider whether her work is too focussed on certain kinds of bourgeois-family relationships. “I almost completely accept the challenge,” she tells Treisman. “I think one should feel perpetually slightly on edge as to whether your subject matter justifies the art.”

David Means joins Deborah Treisman to discuss “Face Time,” by Lorrie Moore, which was published in The New Yorker in 2020. Means is the author of a novel and six story collections, including “Instructions for a Funeral” and “Two Nurses, Smoking,” which came out in 2022.

George Saunders joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “So Late in the Day,” by Claire Keegan, which was published in The New Yorker in 2022. Saunders is the author of the novel “Lincoln in the Bardo,” and five story collections, including “Tenth of December” and “Liberation Day,” which came out last year.

Ottessa Moshfegh joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Two Ruminations on a Homeless Brother,” by David Means, which was published in The New Yorker in 2017. Moshfegh is the author of four novels, including “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” and “Lapvona.”

Jonas Hassen Khemiri joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “A Slice of Life,” by Vladimir Nabokov, translated from the Russian text of 1925, by Dmitri Nabokov, in collaboration with the author, which was published in The New Yorker in 1976. Khemiri is a Swedish fiction writer and playwright whose novels include “The Family Clause” and “Everything I Don't Remember.”

Saïd Sayrafiezadeh joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Ill Seen Ill Said,” by Samuel Beckett, which was published in The New Yorker in 1981. Sayrafiezadeh is the author of a memoir and two story collections, the most recent of which, “American Estrangement,” was published in 2021.

Claire-Louise Bennett joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Family Walls,” by Maeve Brennan, which was published in The New Yorker in 1973. Bennett has published two books of fiction, “Pond” and “Checkout 19.”

Clare Sestanovich joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “The Moons of Jupiter” by Alice Munro, which was published in The New Yorker in 1978. Sestanovich's story collection, “Objects of Desire,” was published in 2021.

Gary Shteyngart joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Omakase,” by Weike Wang, which was published in *The New Yorker* in 2018. Shteyngart is the author of five novels including, most recently, “Lake Success” and “Our Country Friends.” 

Ling Ma joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Seeing Ershadi,” by Nicole Krauss, which was published in The New Yorker in 2018. Ma is the author of the novel “Severance” and the story collection “Bliss Montage,” which came out in September.

Jamil Jan Kochai joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “All Will Be Well,” by Yiyun Li, which was published in The New Yorker in 2019. Kochai is the author of two books, the novel “99 Nights in Logar,” which was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and the story collection “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak,” which is a finalist for the National Book Award. He is currently a Hodder Fellow at Princeton.

Madeleine Thien joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “The Cafeteria in the Evening and a Pool in the Rain,” by Yoko Ogawa, translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder, which was published in The New Yorker in 2004. Thien's books include the novels “Dogs at the Perimeter” and “Do Not Say We Have Nothing,” which won the Governor General's Literary Award and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. 

Elif Batuman joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Truth and Fiction,” by Sylvia Townsend Warner, which was published in The New Yorker in 1961. Batuman is the author of one book of nonfiction, “The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them,” and two novels, “The Idiot” and “Either/Or,” which was published earlier this year. She has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2010.

The August 29, 2022, issue of The New Yorker is an archival issue, bringing together pieces from past issues of the magazine on the theme of Celebrity. It features the story “Roy Spivey,” by Miranda July, which was published in The New Yorker in 2007. Instead of a Writer's Voice episode, this week we are rereleasing an episode of the New Yorker Fiction Podcast, taped in 2012, in which David Sedaris joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Roy Spivey.”

André Alexis joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Waiting for Death in a Hotel,” by Italo Calvino, translated, from the Italian, by Martin McLaughlin, which was published in The New Yorker in 2006. Alexis's novels include “Childhood,” “Days by Moonlight,” and “Fifteen Dogs,” which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2015. 2022 © Italo Calvino, performed with permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.

Akhil Sharma joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Zombie,” by Joyce Carol Oates, which was published in The New Yorker in 1994. Sharma is the author of the novels “Family Life” and “An Obedient Father,” which will be reissued in a revised version this month.

Rachel Kushner joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Come Into the Drawing Room, Doris,” by Edna O'Brien, which was published in The New Yorker in 1962. Kushner is the author of three novels and most recently the essay collection “The Hard Crowd,” which was published last year.