Georgina Godwin has spent more than two decades building one of the most distinctive presences in London literary life—not as a writer, but as the person writers most want talking about their books. As Books Editor at Monocle Radio and host of the station’s long-running flagship literary program, Meet the Writers, Godwin has hosted 547 episodes and become a trusted and sought-after guide through the contemporary literary landscape.
Born in Zimbabwe and trained as a broadcast journalist, Godwin also chairs events at festivals worldwide, from Jaipur to Adelaide to Hay, and has served on the juries of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, the Caine Prize for African Writing, and the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, among others. A trustee of English PEN and honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Godwin spoke with PW about the art of interviewing authors, the proliferation of book podcasts, and why being a broadcaster is not the same thing as being a podcaster.
You’ve said your programs are not about what you think of literature, they’re about what the writer has to say. How so?
I just really think it’s important for the interview to be about the author and the book. I have a simple approach: get out of the way, let the author tell the story. First I always read the book, then my questions are refined down over days until I’ve got just two words per question in front of me. It takes away any temptation to wax lyrical about yourself. I have one talent, and it is broadcasting. Now everybody thinks they can be a podcaster, an interviewer or whatever, the focus is often on them and not the person being interviewed.
Is the distinction between broadcaster and podcaster or influencer really important?
I’m old school like that. Being a broadcaster is something different. It means knowing timing in your soul. I don’t need to look at the clock to know I’ve got five seconds to wrap a book before the pips come in. A podcaster won’t be able to do that—that’s something bred into you over twenty years of broadcasting. When I’ve got half an hour, I’m working toward that last question that’s really going to land with an audience, the one that’s going to make them cry, or laugh, or at least go out and buy the book. It's also one of the reasons I insist on doing all my interviews in person, either in studio or remotely, without exception.
Why is that preferable?
The quality of the conversation is just so much better. You establish a relationship. After you spend half an hour staring into somebody’s eyes and asking them about themselves and being genuinely interested, you are really a little bit in love. The result is I now have a library with of hundreds of books signed by authors. Every single one—or almost every single one—was signed by the author within five minutes of our interview concluding. You have to ask at the end, right at the end, because that is when the feeling of love is the strongest.
One wonderful result of this is that I can pick up a book and recall exactly where we were, when it was, how it felt immediately afterwards. And those people are generally now in my contacts book, so when I go to festivals around the world I can help and say, 'I’ve just done this great interview and this person’s available, I can connect you.' I love that because they’re not having to go through an agent or a publisher.
Is this also how you put together the literary house parties you've become known for hosting in London and New York?
I am so bored with warm white wine in an overcrowded, stuffy bookshop where there's nowhere to put your coat and you have to stand during the speeches. What I do for my friends is bring in all their genuine friends. There'll be a bookseller discreetly in the corner, the speeches take no more than five minutes, the wine is not plonk, there's something to eat. They give me a guest list and I bulk that up with people I think they would enjoy meeting or who gel well with that list.
What happens with standard book launches is a publicist just sends out invitations to their list. That's not a curated party. So much of what I do—the discussions on stage, the discussions on radio, the discussions around my dining room table and in my garden—is about curation. I think it's really important to get that right. And my brother Peter [Godwin], whose memoir Exit Wounds came out last year, is very much a beneficiary of that. We host very well together in both London and New York. We're a competent team.
Last year, you went on an extensive book tour together. What was that like?
Book publishers, certainly in Britain, are generally very overworked. The standard thing they'll do is send out a few press releases. Honestly, that's not enough to sell a book these days. You need somebody who's really dedicated to it and loves that book and really wants to see it succeed. That person turned out to be me. Which is why we went to eleven festivals in nine different countries, with me interviewing him on stage. It was gratifying and there was no one better to do the interview, since we share family, history, stories. Our best session was in Adelaide. A lot of Southern Africans live there, so there was an extra resonance to this latest book. And in terms of sheer spectacular fun, it has to have been Jaipur. There were painted elephants, dancers, a wonderful sense of occasion every night...
What, ultimately, is the point of all this book talk you conduct?
Surely not for financial enrichment, but for spiritual enrichment, yes. It also brings listeners something I hope is valuable in its own way: the encouragement to read. When you do this, you are aware that someone listening to you doesn't have to read a book. They can be on TikTok, or YouTube or Netflix. So you want to give them as much knowledge about something that exists: look, here’s something really interesting, and it’s called a book.
Georgina Godwin appears today at the London Book Fair on April 11, chairing a session, "Imagine Non-Fiction: The Form and Its Politics” with author Anna Pazos and Jacques Testard, publisher of Fitzcarraldo Editions, at the Literary Translation Cetner 1:45-2:15 p.m.
