Montreal writer Dany Laferrière became "Immortal" in 2015, when he was inducted into the Académie française, the highest honour in all French literature - and the first Quebecer and only second Black writer to receive such an honour. In these wide-ranging interviews with Adam Leith Gollner, portions of which were originally published in The Paris Review, Laferrière reveals how his life and his writing are inseparable, discussing everything from his breakout debut, How To Make Love To a Negro Without Getting Tired, to the extraordinary success of more recent novels such as The Return and I Am a Japanese Writer. Brilliant, comedic, and full of insightful advice for writers and readers, these conversations also serve as the definitive introduction to one of our greatest storytellers.

Adam Leith Gollner's first book, The Fruit Hunters (Scribner, 2008), was a national bestseller and was adapted into an award-winning documentary film. His follow-up, The Book of Immortality (Scribner, 2013), won the QWF Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction. His writing appears in The Paris Review, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Smithsonian, and The New Yorker online. He lives in Montreal.

Adam Leith Gollner's profile page

"I've translated ten of Laferrière's novels and a good deal of his other writings, having met him in the mid-1980s, and I thought I knew all there was to know about him. Not at all. Adam Gollner's portrait of the man and the writer opens up the landscape to the fullest, adding a more reflective side to Laferrière. Not without playfulness, of course, but Gollner has managed to draw out something graver behind the legendary artful humour. His willingness to follow Laferrière to the various places where he has composed his books shows his true commitment to his subject. -- David Homel, Award-winning author and translator.
Dany Laferrière, a member of the Académie Française (thus nicknamed an "immortal"), is one of my favourite writers, so Adam Leith Gollner's Working in the Bathtub: Conversations with the Immortal Dany Laferrière was always going to interest me. What I was not expecting was to enjoy most Laferrière's commentary on finance. And it is true, what he says (I paraphrase): Banks don't understand money. You want to understand money, you ask a writer. Jade Colber, 20 Oct 2020, The Globe and Mail