The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast

For the final episode of our 2026 season, Mike talks with Adam Erlich Sachs (recipient of a 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction) about the historical Kantian thicket of Heinrich von Kleist's Michael Kohlhaas, translated by Michael Hoffman.

Adam Ehrlich Sachs is the author of three works of fiction—Gretel and the Great War (2024), The Organs of Sense (2019), and Inherited Disorders: Stories, Parables, and Problems (2016). The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature (2018) and an American Academy in Berlin Fellowship (2019), Sachs lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his family.
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Mike chats with S. Shakthidharan (or Shakthi) about Hilda Rosner's translation of Siddhartha, Herman Hesse's classic novel of self-discovery and enlightenment.

S. Shakthidharan was born in Sri Lanka and raised in Sydney, Australia, where he currently lives. His plays include Counting and Cracking (with Eamon Flack) and The Wrong Gods. Shakthidharan is the recipient of the Green Room Award for Outstanding New Australian Writing (2024) and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award and Prize for Drama (2020), among other honors.
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Prize Director Michael Kelleher talks with 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction recipient Kei Miller about Yuval Noah Harari's sprawling and sometimes controversial book Sapiens and about how humanity is fiction (and vice-versa).

Kei Miller is a Jamaican poet, essayist, and novelist, shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award and winner of the prestigious Forward poetry prize for his collection The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion. His most recent book is the essay collection Things I Have Withheld, out in 2021. His story collection Fear of Stones was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book, and his most recent novel, Augustown was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award, and won the Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the Prix Les Afriques, and the Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-Monde. In 2010, the Institute of Jamaica awarded him the Silver Musgrave medal for his contributions to Literature and in 2018 he was awarded the Anthony Sabga medal for Arts & Letters. He has taught at the Universities of Glasgow, Royal Holloway and Exeter and, in 2019, he was the Ida Beam Distinguished Visiting Professor to the University of Iowa.
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Mike talks with 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction recipient Gwendoline Riley about Mark Van Doren's rangy, American, and endlessly-re-readable Shakespeare. Plus, a good Top 5 list of Shakespeare's plays!

Gwendoline Riley was born in London. She is the author of seven novels, including First Love, My Phantoms, and most recently, The Palm House. In 2018, the Times Literary Supplement named her one of the twenty best British and Irish novelists working today. She won the 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction.

The Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast is a production of Literary Hub
Hosted by Michael Kelleher
Theme music by Dani Lencioni
Produced and edited by Drew Broussard
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Mike Kelleher talks with Joyelle McSweeney, recipient of a 2026 Windham-Campbell Prize for Poetry, about Anne Carson's vibrant translation of Euripides's Iphigenia Among the Taurians and what it means to see a different side of a well-known story.

Joyelle McSweeney is the author of ten books of poetry, drama and prose, a well-known critic, and a vital publisher of international literature in translation. Winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship for Poetry (2022) among other honors, McSweeney is also co-founder and co-editor of Action Books. She is currently Chair of the English Department and the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.
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