“Fat Swim” and Literature’s Fatphobia Problem

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Jennifer Wilson writes about culture for the New Yorker. Culture in many forms.

Everything from the latest in literary fiction to the boom in prenup agreements. Jen sat down the other day for For a conversation with the author of a new book called Fat Swim. I first met Emma Copley Eisenberg around seven years ago in Philadelphia where we both lived at the time. She had created a literary organization called Blue Stoop to help connect the city's community of writers.

Now she's out with Fat Swim, a short story collection set in Philadelphia. The characters are vibrant and many identify as fat and are resentful that they live in a world that wants to, you know, limit their their cravings for food, for one another, and for life. Emma is one of the foremost thinkers about fat phobia in literature but also in American culture more broadly and it was one of the reasons why I was just very excited to have the opportunity to talk to her. Here's Jennifer Wilson talking with Emma Copley Eisenberg.

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