Little Atoms

Philip Hensher is the prizewinning author of twelve novels, and the editor of The Penguin Book of the British Short Story (in two volumes) and of The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest book A History of the Novel in Britain.

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A.K. Blakemore is a poet and novelist. Her debut novel, The Manningtree Witches, won the Desmond Elliott Prize for Best First Novel and was shortlisted for the Costa and RSL Ondaatje Prizes. Her second, The Glutton, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her third novel, Doom Painting, an hour by hour retelling of the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt.

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Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-seven languages. The author of twenty books, fourteen of which are novels, she was awarded the Halldór Laxness Prize for her contribution to the art of storytelling. Shafak's previous novel, There Are Rivers In The Sky, was the UK’s bestselling literary hardback novel of 2025, selling over 500,000 copies. Widely read in many countries around the world, her writing has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and Prix Femina Etranger, among...

Hernan Diaz is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Trust, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. It was named one of The New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the Century. His previous novel, In the Distance, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has received the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Kirkus Award, a Whiting Award, and a fellowship from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages. On this...

Isabel Allende is one of the most widely read authors in the world, having sold more than seventy-seven million books. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel won worldwide acclaim in 1982 with the publication of her first novel, The House of the Spirits. Since then, she has authored more than twenty-six bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including Daughter of Fortune, Island Beneath the Sea, Paula, and The Wind Knows My Name. On today’s episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her new book Storytelling: A Masterclass in Crafting Stories.

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Louise Kennedy grew up a few miles from Belfast. She is the author of the acclaimed short-story collection, The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac, which won the John McGahern Prize. Her debut novel Trespasses, published in 2022, has been translated into over twenty languages. It won Eason Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards, Book of the Year: Debut Fiction at the British Book Awards and the McKitterick Prize, and was also shortlisted for several awards including the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and Barnes and Noble Discover Prize...

China Miéville is a Sunday Times bestselling author of fiction and non-fiction. His novels include The City & The City, Embassytown, and Perdido Street Station. A recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction, he has won the World Fantasy, the Hugo, and the Arthur C. Clarke awards, among others. His non-fiction includes a study of international law and a history of the Russian Revolution. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his epic new novel The Rouse. Content warning: Contains discussion of suicide.

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Fatima Bhutto is the author of the novels The Runaways and the Women’s Prize for Fiction-longlisted The Shadow of the Crescent Moon, and the non-fiction New Kings of the World and Songs of Blood and Sword, which deals with her father’s murder and the Bhutto family's history in Pakistani politics. Bhutto’s journalism and essays have appeared in the New Statesman, New York Times and Guardian, and elsewhere. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her latest book The Hour of The Wolf.

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Marlon James is the author of the Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings; the National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf; the New York Times-bestselling Moon Witch, Spider King; The Book of Night Women; and John Crow’s Devil. In addition to the Booker Prize, his novels have won the American Book Award, the Los Angeles Times’ Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. On this episode of Little Atoms Marlon talks to Neil Denny about his Booker prize long listed novel The Disappearers.

In the last episode of the Summer archive series, Sarah Polley talks to Neil about her book Run Towards The Danger, first broadcast in July 2022. Normal service resumes next week!

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From August 2022, Neil talks to Maggie O'Farrell about her novel The Marriage Portrait.

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From September 2022, Robert Harris talks to Neil about his novel Act of Oblivion.

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Neil Talks to Madeline Miller about her novel Circe, first broadcast in August 2018.

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From March 2023, Laura Cumming talks to Neil about her book Thunderclap,

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From July 2023, Neil talks to Mark O'Connell about his book A Thread of Violence.

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From October 2022, Neil talks to Yiyun Li about her novel The Book of Goose.

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Kevin Barry talks to Neil about his novel The Heart In Winter. First broadcast in June 2024, and the 900th episode of Little Atoms.

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From back in September 2021, Neil talks to Lauren Groff about her novel Matrix.

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First broadcast in January 2023, Bret Easton Ellis talks to Neil about his novel The Shards.

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From March 2023, Neil talks to Alice Winn about her novel In Memoriam, which won the Waterstones Novel of the Year award, and the British Book Awards Debut of the Year.

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Neil Denny talks to Adrian Chiles about his book The Good Drinker, from November 2022.

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Ann Patchett is the author of novels, works of nonfiction, and children's books. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the PEN/Faulkner, the Women's Prize in the U.K., and the National Humanities Medal. TIME magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where she is the owner of Parnassus Books. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her latest novel Whistler.

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Douglas Stuart was born and raised in Glasgow. After graduating from the Royal College of Art, he moved to New York, where he began a career in fashion design. Shuggie Bain, his first novel, won the Booker Prize and both 'Debut of the Year' and 'Book of the Year' at the British Book Awards. It was also shortlisted for the US National Book Award for Fiction, among many other awards. His second novel, Young Mungo, was a number one Sunday Times Bestseller. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker. On this, the 1000th episode of Little Atoms...

Daniel Lavelle is an Orwell Prize-winning freelance feature writer from Manchester. His first book, Down and Out, was published in 2022 and won a Royal Society of Literature award for non-fiction writing. He has covered topics such as mental health, homelessness, and culture for the Guardian (for whom he co-authored the series ‘The Empty Doorway’), New Statesman and the Independent. He received the Guardian’s Hugo Young award for an opinion piece on his experience of homelessness. ‘The Empty Doorway’ won Feature of the Year at the British Journalism Awards 2019 and was nominated for the same award at the National Press Awar...

Daniel Trilling writes about nationalism, migration and human rights for publications including the London Review of Books, the Guardian and the New York Times. His work has been shortlisted for the Orwell Prize, the Political Book Awards and the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest book, If We Tolerate This: How the British establishment made the far right respectable.

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Claire Fuller gained a degree in sculpture from Winchester School of Art, but went on to have a long career in marketing and didn't start writing until she was forty. She has written five previous novels including: Unsettled Ground, which in 2021 won the Costa Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, Our Endless Numbered Days, which won the Desmond Elliott Prize, Swimming Lessons, which was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her latest novel Hunger and Thirst.

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Richard Byrne is a dramatist and journalist. He was the editor of The Wilson Quarterly from 2019 to 2021. His work has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, The Guardian, Time, BookForum and Zona Motel. His music criticism includes liner notes for releases by R.E.M. and Uncle Tupelo. His work as a dramatist includes two musicals: Nero/Pseudo (written with Jon Langford and Jim Elkington) and Congressman Davy (with Dean Schlabowske). His play, Hotel Mayflower, was published in a bilingual edition (English/German) by Moloko Print. He also wrote the screenplay for the 2024 Pandora Machine film, The Drowned...

Angela Tomaski was born in Oxford and raised in Somerset with her four brothers and sisters. She has had a variety of different jobs, including as a waitress, cleaner, English teacher and activity coordinator in a care home. She has a daughter and two grandsons, and now lives in rural Dorset. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her debut novel The Infamous Gilberts.

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Sian Hughes is a writer who grew up in a small village in Cheshire. Her first collection of poetry The Missing was a Poetry Society Recommendation, longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, shortlisted for the Felix Dennis and the Aldeburgh prizes, and won the Seamus Heaney Award. Sian's first novel Pearl was longlisted for The Booker Prize 2023 and shortlisted for The Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2024. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her latest novel No Such Thing As Monday.

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Elizabeth Arnott is an award-winning writer and journalist and has written critically acclaimed historical fiction as Lizzie Pook. Her work has featured in publications including The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and Stylist. On today’s episode of Little Atoms, she talks to Neil Denny about her new novel The Secret Lives of Murderers' Wives.

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Sophie Mackintosh is the author of four novels, including The Water Cure and Cursed Bread. She has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Women's Prize, has won a Betty Trask Award, and has been selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. She has been published in Granta, The White Review and TANK magazine among others. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil Denny about her latest novel, Permanence.

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John Grindrod is the author of Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain, Outskirts: Living Life on the Edge of the Green Belt (shortlisted for the 2018 Wainwright Prize for UK travel and nature writing), and Iconicon: A Journey Around the Landmark Buildings of Contemporary Britain. He hosts the podcast Monstrosities Mon Amour. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest book Tales of the Suburbs: LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains.

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Robert Plunket was born in Greenville, Texas, in 1945, but raised in Havana and Mexico City. After college he moved to New York and became a writer, publishing two novels, My Search for Warren Harding (1983) and Love Junkie (1992). He later became Mr Chatterbox, the gossip columnist for Sarasota Magazine. He is retired and lives in a trailer park in Englewood, Florida. On today’s episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his novel Love Junkie which was recently re-released by penguin Modern Classics.

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Isabel Waidner is the author of five novels – including Sterling Karat Gold, which won the Goldsmiths Prize and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and Corey Fah Does Social Mobility which was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award. They teach in the School of the Arts at Queen Mary University of London. On this episode of Little Atoms they talk to Neil Denny about their latest novel As If.

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Francis Spufford is the author of three novels and five works of non-fiction. His debut work of fiction was the historical novel Golden Hill, which won the Costa First Novel Award, the RSL Ondaatje Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, and was shortlisted for four others. His second novel, Light Perpetual, was awarded the Encore Award and longlisted for the Booker Prize. His third novel, the alternative history Cahokia Jazz, was recognised by the Science Fiction community when it was awarded the Sidewise Award in 2023. He teaches writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London. On this episode of Little Atoms he ta...

James Geary, an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, is the author of Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It, Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists and I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about the reissue of his New York Times best-selling book The World in a Phrase: A Brief History of the Aphorism.

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Alex Preston is an award-winning author of five novels including This Bleeding City, The Revelations, In Love and War and Winchelsea, as well as a book of non-fiction As Kingfishers Catch Fire. He writes regularly for the New York Times, the Economist and Harper's Bazaar. He reviews books for the Observer's New Review, Financial Times and Spectator. Alex is co-founder of the Corfu Literary Festival and Patron of Oxford Literary Festival. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about his latest novel A Stranger in Corfu.

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Originally from Leicester, Manish Chauhan works as a finance lawyer and currently lives in East London. His short story, "Pieces", was shortlisted for the 2024 BBC National Short Story Award. His work has been shortlisted for the Galley Beggar Short Story Prize and the Exeter Short Story Competition. Early excerpts of Belgrave Road were longlisted for the Curtis Brown First Novel Award and shortlisted for the Daniel Goldsmith First Novel Prize. On this episode of Little Atoms he talks to Neil Denny about Belgrave Road, his debut novel.

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George Saunders is the author of thirteen books, including the novel Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the Booker Prize in 2017, and five collections of stories including Tenth of December, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the recent collection Liberation Day (selected by former President Obama has one of his ten favourite books of 2021). Three of Saunders' books - Pastoralia, Tenth of December, and Lincoln in the Bardo - were chosen for the New York Times' list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. Saunders hosts the popular Story Club on Substack, which grew out of hi...

Grace Murray was born in 2003 and grew up in Norwich. She has recently graduated from Edinburgh University, where she read English Literature and found time to write between her studies and two part-time jobs. Her short fiction has been published in The London Magazine. On this episode of Little Atoms she talks to Neil denny about her debut novel Blank Canvas, which was written over the course of a year as part of WriteNow, Penguin Random House’s flagship mentorship scheme for emerging talent. Grace won one of nine places on the scheme on the exceptional strength of her writ...