Martin Amis on Love, Loss and Death

Intelligence Squared: Arts & Culture

To mark the passing of one of Britain's most celebrated writers, we’re replaying an event recorded with us in November 2020.

Martin Amis was often called the Mick Jagger of the British book world. As famous for his love affairs, his friendships and his complicated family history as for his dazzling prose, he dominated the literary scene for decades.

In this exclusive Intelligence Squared event, made in partnership with Penguin Live, he speaks about his much anticipated autobiographical novel Inside Story. It is perhaps Amis’s most intimate book, a meditation on love, loss, ageing and death. We encounter the vivid characters who have helped define Amis – his father Kingsley, his literary hero Saul Bellow, the poet Philip Larkin and his novelist stepmother Elizabeth Jane Howard.

And of course there is his lifelong friend and conversation partner, Christopher Hitchens, whose death from cancer he chronicles in some of the tenderest prose he has ever written.

In conversation with novelist Alex Preston, Amis reflects on his life and work and explore the hardest questions we all face: how to live, how to grieve, and how to die.

This podcast was produced by Executive Producer Hannah Kaye with editing by Executive Producer Rowan Slaney

To hear the full length episode in which Amis goes into the urgency of youth, the legacy we leave, and dealing with the death of Hitchens, become an Intelligence Squared Supporter today, just visit IntelligenceSquared.com/members

—

We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be.

Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to [e-mail] or Tweet us @intelligence2.

And if you’d like to support our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations, as well as ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content, early access and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today.

Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices