Idra Novey, "Those Who Knew"

Idra Novey discusses her novel, "Those Who Knew", at Politics and Prose.

Set on an unnamed island still reeling from the Terrible Years under a brutal regime, Novey’s crisp yet graceful novel explores ideas of politics and resistance through a handful of families. Unfolding in brief cinematic takes, the book follows Lena, the rebellious daughter of an elite family; Oscar, a visitor from the North, who falls in love with Lena; Victor, a charismatic leftist with an increasingly uncontrollable violent streak; his brother Freddy, a playwright, who puts on stage all he can’t say to Victor directly; and Olga, who runs a revolutionary used-book store featuring a Conspiracy section. As the characters fall in love, marry, and have children, Novey, an award-winning translator, poet, and author of Ways to Disappear, charts their evolving notions of activism and political change. Novey is in conversation with Paul Goldberg, author of The Yid and The Chateau.

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Produced by Tom Warren