Literary Figures

From intestinal distress to family dysfunction, writer David Sedaris has spent decades sharing some of the most intimate aspects of his life. Still, there are some topics that make him uncomfortable.

Growing up with a Mexican father and an American mother, author Luis Alberto Urrea often felt like there was a border wall running through his family's San Diego apartment.

Playwright, actor and director Sam Shepard has a new book of short stories, Great Dream of Heaven. Shepard won a Pulitzer Prize for his play Buried Child and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as legendary test pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff. This interview first aired Mar. 31, 1998.

The 85-year-old novelist worked for MI5 and MI6 early in his career. "I felt I had to suppress my humanity," he says of those years. Originally broadcast Sept. 5, 2017.

Mark Harris says the military worked with Hollywood directors to create movies about the war. His book, Five Came Back, is the basis for a new Netflix docu-series. Originally broadcast March 3, 2014.

Kate Hennessy drew from family letters, diaries and memories in writing Dorothy Day, a biography of her late grandmother. Day founded the Catholic Worker Movement and is now a candidate for sainthood.

"Donald and I go all the way back to when his hair was dark brown," Garry Trudeau jokes. His new book, Yuge!, is a collection of 30 years of comic strips featuring Trump as a character.

In his new book Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods, Michael Wex explores the history and culture of Yiddish: its complaints, curses and codes.

The Seven Good Years spans the time between the birth of his son and the death of his father. Keret says his father, who was a Holocaust survivor, taught him to "look reality straight in the face."