大象传媒

Tonight Matthew Sweet talks to the American writer, James Salter..although writer seems rather an inadequate description. He's been a fighter pilot, a rock climber and a film maker as well sitting at a desk staring at a blank page. Whenever anyone talks about James Salter there's usually a phrase which suggests that although less well known than contemporaries such as Philip Roth he's a brilliant stylist, a writer's writer and someone who can count Richard Ford and John Irving among his admirers. His memoir Burning the Days came out here in 1997 to huge acclaim and he's published some short stories since then as well but now, after a gap of 34 years, there's a brand new novel - All That Is. The book embraces American history from the war in the Pacific to the present and the intimate history of men and women during this period - territory that Salter has made his own in all that he writes. Matthew Sweet talks to him about the thrill of flying, women, grief and the consolations of fiction.

Producer: Zahid Warley.