Jonathan Levi: History, Truth, and Septimania

“History, the mother of Truth…” as Borges quotes both Cervantes and Pierre Menard. But what about paternity? Jonathan Levi talks about his new novel Septimania, set in Rome between 800 AD and the present, asking whether fantasy and imagination make novelists good fathers.

US writer Jonathan Levi is the author of the 1992 novel A Guide for the Perplexed and the upcoming Septimania (April 2016, The Overlook Press), as well as many plays and opera libretti that have been performed in Italy, the Netherlands, Georgia, the UK and the United States. A founding editor of Granta magazine, Levi has also written political and cultural journalism for The New York Times, The Nation, Conde Nast Traveler, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. He currently lives in Rome and is artistic advisor to the Zaubersee Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland, and co-director of the Gabriel García Márquez Fellowship in Cultural Journalism in Cartagena, Colombia.