Ben Pester

speaker

327 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 4 Jul

Ben Pester’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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London Review Bookshop Podcast · Claire-Louise Bennett & Ben Pester: Magic & Mechanics · 4 Jul 2026 podcast

it's as much from the body as it is from just the ideas in your head and I think the nearly saying something there's something that happens there in that space if I went all the way and actually said it out loud I might

I might stop writing.

Somehow that would be the completion and so the hands would stop.

But that's very personal.

That's just me.

Do you have an answer ready?

Well, no, because it's a great question, actually, because the answer is so...

it's something you don't really get to explain very often.

Like it's the difference I think between, there are books that influence you or writers that maybe influence you.

And I feel that they give you a kind of a way of allowing yourself to do certain things.

Like I think the people we've talked about a little bit, like I mentioned Artaud earlier, but like there are loads of writers like Heller and all these people who I feel have given me a sort of permission.

But when it comes to like,

the voice or sounding like somebody else, I feel as if I'm writing like anyone I'm reading.

Like when I'm reading a book that I get, I'm a very slow reader.

I tell people that I chew my food.

That's my clever way of saying it.

But like, I basically just take ages reading books and I feel as if I kind of inhabit them

And then when I write, because I write every day and I read every day, I feel as if I'm doing it.

But it's been so long of kind of thinking, oh God, I hope I don't just sound like I'm doing a bad impression of this writer.

You know, people don't just think I'm sort of trying to rip off Claire Louise Bennett or something like that.

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