London Review Bookshop Podcast LRB at 40: Jeremy Harding, Nikita Lalwani and Adam Shatz
Nov 5, 2019
Adam Shatz, writer and editor on politics and the Middle East, and Jeremy Harding, journalist on colonialism and post‑colonial politics, join novelist Nikita Lalwani. They discuss decolonisation and orientalism. They cover Israel‑Palestine reporting and the risks that follow. They debate editorial culture, diversity in contributors, and how longform discourse survives social media.
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Giuliano Mer-Khamis Cultural Resistance In Jenin
- Adam Shatz recounted Giuliano Mer-Khamis's work mixing Israeli and Palestinian identities and his film Arna's Children.
- He visited Jenin after Giuliano's unsolved 2011 murder and traced tensions between cultural resistance and local conservatism that made Mer-Khamis vulnerable.
Publishing Ambivalence Over Easy Certainty
- LRB favours unsettled, probing pieces that own ambivalence rather than definitive conclusions.
- Nikita Lalwani and Jeremy Harding credited Mary-Kay Wilmers's editing for pushing writers to reconsider certainties without creating 'mush'.
Submit Work Ready For Rigorous Iteration
- Expect rigorous back-and-forth editing: revise drafts multiple times and accept being challenged.
- Jeremy Harding described feeling 'flat on the floor' after edits but said the collective editing process improved pieces and made writers feel sheltered.