UBC Connects with Fran Lebowitz

Presented by UBC CONNECTS

In a cultural landscape filled with endless pundits and talking heads, Fran Lebowitz stands out as one of our most insightful social commentators.

Her essays and interviews offer her acerbic views on current events and the media, and The New York Times Book Review calls her an “important humorist in the classic tradition.” Purveyor of urban cool, Lebowitz is a cultural satirist whom many call the heir to Dorothy Parker. By turns ironic, facetious, deadpan, sarcastic, wry, wisecracking, and waggish, Lebowitz’s prose is wickedly entertaining. Her two books are collected in The Fran Lebowitz Reader, with a new preface by the author. A limited documentary series, Pretend It’s a City, also directed by Martin Scorsese, premiered on Netflix in 2021.

Eleanor Wachtel

Eleanor Wachtel has earned a reputation as one of the world’s best literary interviewers during her more than 30 years as host of Writers & Company on CBC Radio. Five books of her interviews have been published, including Random Illuminations, a collection of reflections, correspondence and conversations with Carol Shields which won the Independent Publisher Book Award; Original Minds; and most recently, The Best of Writers & Company. She also co-founded and hosted Wachtel on the Arts, featuring conversations with filmmakers, composers, architects, artists, etc. And she’s the host of TIFF’s popular Books on Film series, now in its second decade. Wachtel has earned numerous accolades for her contributions to Canadian cultural life: nine honorary degrees and Officer of the Order of Canada.