John Wilson

welcome to this cultural life the series in which the world's leading artistic figures choose the influences and experiences that most inspired their own creativity i'm john wilson and my guest in this episode is the booker prize-winning american author george saunders he made his name as a writer of satirical or absurdist short stories which often explore contemporary consumerist society always underpinned with a strong sense of compassion and empathy

In 2017, his first full-length novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, about presidential grief amid a cacophony of spiritual voices, won the Booker Prize and became a global bestseller.

His latest novel, Vigil, once again explores death and the afterlife.

George Saunders teaches creative writing at Syracuse University, New York, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in American literature.

George Saunders, welcome to This Cultural Life.

It's so nice to be here, thank you.

And welcome back to London, where in 2017 you won the Booker Prize, of course, for your debut novel, Lincoln in the Bardo.

How big a surprise on the night was that win?

For many people, that Booker win was their introduction to you as a writer.

It was your debut novel at the age, I think, of 58.

But of course, you had been winning so much acclaim and prizes for your short stories for many years.

Did the idea of Lincoln in the Bardo start off as the possible next short story?

And at what point did you think, actually, no, this has to be a novel?

How did you come across the story?

So we should just explain this point for those people who haven't read Lincoln in the Bardo.

The Lincoln in the title is not...

Abraham Lincoln, but his son, Willie, the 11-year-old son who has died and is visited in the tomb by his grieving father.

And the Bardo is a Buddhist concept of a limbo state between life and death.

Interesting you say it could have been a play, because actually there is a play-like aspect to it in the way it's experimental.

Lincoln's visits to the tomb are witnessed by this vast cast of ghostly spectral characters, and then interspersed also with quotes from supposed historical records.