Break Out Culture With Ed Vaizey by Country and Town House

132. William Boyd

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Episode notes

We’re talking to William Boyd, unquestionably one of our greatest living novelists. He’s also a screenwriter, television writer, playwright and director, who has won multiple accolades and awards along the way, including a BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Serial of Any Human Heart. 

Following The Romantic, his latest ‘whole life’ novel, a new book The Mirror and the Road comprises a series of in-depth conversations between William and the acclaimed interviewer Alistair Owen, which covers William’s entire career as a writer. 

We talk to William about that life, in which he’s moved effortlessly between the solitary novelist’s study and Hollywood.  We ask him about his favourite writers and films, whether he prefers writing novels to screenplays and try to discover just how he’s produced such a prodigious output, including 22 works of fiction, 20 produced screenplays, three stage plays and five radio plays. For all fans of William Boyd, this is unmissable listening.

The Mirror and the Road: Conversations with William Boyd, edited by Alistair Watson, is published by Penguin