The 12 Books of Christmas | Rachel Cusk on Art, Womanhood and Redefining Fiction

Welcome to Intelligence Squared where great minds meet. I'm head of programming Connor Boyle. We're looking back at some of our favorite books of the year in our 12 books of Christmas. Today's episode is with writer and novelist Rachel Kusk. Kusk joined us alongside writer Adam Biles to discuss feminism, art,

on the themes of her new book parade. Let's go to the episode now. Thank you, Connor, and good evening everybody. Welcome to this Intelligence Squared and Fabre event. As Connor just said, I'm Adam Biles, literary director at Shakespeare and Company in Paris, and I am delighted to be here with Rachel Kusk tonight to mark the publication of her latest novel, Parade.

Because yes, dear readers, she has done it again. If by doing it again we all understand that to mean that with parade, Rachel Cusk has once again refused to repeat herself, once again refused to get stuck in any kind of literary furrow, once again refused to write what might be expected of her, and rather has, once again, shattered the assumptions of the contemporary novel and reconstructed something breathtakingly new and radically beautiful from the rubble. Divided into four parts, parade is the novel as kaleidoscope. As the reader turns the drum, moving from one section to the next, the concerns remain consistent. The artist's life, the female condition, violence, the death of a parent, marriage, the struggle over children, but the coloured shards shift into startlingly different arrangements, allowing new insight, new revelation, and creating new art.

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