Fresh Air

March 6, 2021 • Known for his novel ‘The Things They Carried,’ Tim O’Brien is now the subject of a new documentary, ‘The War and Peace of Tim O’Brien.’ When he became a father in his late 50s, he initially feared parenthood would curtail his writing. “Much as Vietnam did, [parenthood] gave me a body of material, that kind of context to write about,” he says.

March 5, 2021 • James McBride’s novel ‘Deacon King Kong’ takes place in 1969, in a Brooklyn housing project similar to the one he grew up in. “In this book and in this community, people generally love each other,” he says. McBride’s novel ‘The Good Lord Bird’ was adapted last year into a miniseries starring Ethan Hawke.

March 4, 2021 • America’s 19-year war in Afghanistan may soon be coming to an end. The Trump administration negotiated a deal with the Taliban, in which the U.S. agreed to withdraw all its troops by May 1. But the Afghan government was not included in those talks. Now President Biden has to decide whether to honor the Trump deal and risk that the Taliban will try to take over the country again. We speak with ‘New Yorker’ reporter Dexter Filkins about what he saw in Afghanistan while he was there in January.

March 3, 2021 • Based on Chung’s own childhood, ‘Minari’ is about a Korean American family that moves to rural Arkansas to start a farm. The director spoke with contributor Arun Venugopal about the memories that inspired the film, why he initially kept the project a secret from his family, and choosing the title of the movie. ‘Minari’ just won a Golden Globe for best foreign language film.

March 2, 2021 • Eliot Higgins is the founder of an online collective that picks apart conspiracy theories and investigates war crimes and hate crimes using clues from the Internet — like social media posts, leaked databases and free satellite maps. We talk about how Bellingcat traced the origin of the missile that shot down flight MH17 in Ukraine, the ethics of the Bellingcat methods, and the emotional impact of seeing atrocities online. His new book is ‘We Are Bellingcat.’

March 1, 2021 • The sleight-of-hand master explores themes of identity, honesty and the emotional cost of keeping secrets in the memoir, ‘AMORALMAN.’ DelGaudio’s one-man show ‘In & Of Itself’ is now available on Hulu. “[Secrets] are like a drug,” he says. “They enter your system and they intoxicate you and they get you to modify your behavior, whether you know it or not. And so it’s learning to control the effects of secrecy that really were key for me, in terms of creating a convincing illusion.”

February 27, 2021 • British actor Sacha Baron Cohen is known for taking his absurd characters like Borat, Brüno and Ali G into the world and interacting with unwitting real people. Baron Cohen has been chased, sued and nearly arrested while in character. We talk about why he revived Borat after a 13-year hiatus and playing Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman in ‘The Trial of the Chicago 7.’

February 26, 2021 • The movie ‘One Night in Miami,’ directed by Regina King, imagines the conversations between four Black icons in 1964: Cassius Clay, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Malcolm X, on the night of Clay’s surprise win over Sonny Liston. We listen back to archival interviews about three of those men. We hear from Peter Guralnick, who wrote a biography of Sam Cooke, the popular singer and one of the first gospel artists to cross over to soul music; with Jonathan Eig, who spent four years researching and writing a biography of Muhammad Ali (previously known as Cassius Clay); and with Alex Haley, who was chosen by Malcolm X to help write his now famous autobiography. This was before Haley wrote his seminal book ‘Roots’.

February 25, 2021 • George Polk Award-winning journalist Luke Mogelson followed a mob of MAGA supporters into the Capitol on Jan. 6 and filmed what he saw. His video footage from inside the Senate Chamber was used as evidence in the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. “I think that the majority of people who were there were generally geared up and prepared for some kind of violence,” he says. “So once all these folks were gathered on the Mall and listening to Trump, I think that they could have been sent in any number of directions. What did happen was Trump specifically directed them towards a target, a specific target, and that was the Capitol.”

February 24, 2021 • Known for his novel ‘The Things They Carried,’ O’Brien is now the subject of a new documentary, ‘The War and Peace of Tim O’Brien.’ When he became a father in his late 50s, he initially feared parenthood would curtail his writing.” Much as Vietnam did, [parenthood] gave me a body of material, that kind of context to write about,” he says. “Maybe it’s biology just keeping the species going, but I feel that I’m part of something age-old that’s going to continue long after I’m gone.”