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Johny talks to the Russian-American writer Gary Shteyngart, author of the bestselling Super Sad True Love Story, about his latest novel Our Country Friends. The book is set in March 2020 when a group of friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. His unlikely cast of characters includes a Russian-born novelist; his Russian-born psychiatrist wife; their precocious child obsessed with K-pop; a struggling Indian American writer; a wildly successful Korean American app developer; a global dandy with three passports; a young flame-thrower of an essayist, originally from the Carolinas; and a movie star, The Actor, whose arrival upsets the equilibrium of this chosen family. With a nod to the plays of Anton Chekhov, and the satires of Nikolai Gogol, Gary Shteyngart talks about writing funny, satirical fiction in real-time during the pandemic.

Richard Beard turns his academic eye to time in fiction. In the second part of his new series looking at the processes of writing, he discusses the challenges of writing fiction in the present.

We hear about a new collection of essays and poetry exploring East and Southeast Asian identity in Britain today. East Side Voices is a rich documentation of experiences; from the frontlines of the NHS in the midst of Covid, to the history of Chinese Seamen, to the discomfort of a family portrait. It brings together powerfully human stories with literary poise. Johny is joined by the book's editor, Helena Lee, and by one of its contributors, novelist Tash Aw.

Book List – Sunday 30 January and Thursday 3 February

Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart
Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
The Russian Debutante’s Handbook by Gary Shteyngart
Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart
Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov
Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev
The Big Chill by Doug Johnstone
Requiem for a Nun by William Faulkner
1984 by George Orwell
A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
Mean Girls by Tina Fey
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
East Side Voices by Helena Lee
Strangers on a Pier by Tash Aw