Louis Menand: "It is modernity that makes totalitarianism possible"

From literature, music, visual and performing arts, from sciences to cinema, from James Baldwin, John Cage, Andy Warhol, Elvis Presley, Susan Sontag and Hannah Arendt to Hollywood, Louis Menand built an investigation and analysis to the root causes of the affirmation of the United States in the cultural panorama of the West during part of the Cold War – from the end of the Second World War to the end of the Vietnam War -, but written in the form of a novel. Louis Menand was at FLAD for another edition of Meet the Author.

Renowned critic and essayist, Louis Menand won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for his book The Metaphysical Club. In 2015, he received the National Humanities Medal from the then President of the United States, Barack Obama, for “prose and essays that invite us to think in new ways about the forces that shape our society.”

Louis Menand was at FLAD for a conversation with journalist Isabel Lucas, about his most book ‘The Free World – Art and Thought in the Cold War.’ See the full conversation at the link below:

Meet the Author is an initiative of FLAD, in partnership with the newspaper PÚBLICO. The goal is to provide Portuguese readers with closer contact with some of the most respected writers in the USA.

The sessions take place monthly and are open to the general public, free of charge. The guest authors are interviewed by journalist Isabel Lucas.