Bookends with Mattea Roach

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Atonement, Ian McEwan’s beloved literary masterpiece, which has sold more than two million copies and inspired an Oscar-winning movie. The story begins with a 13 year-old girl named Briony who tells a devastating lie that influences the fates of two families across decades. Its themes of truth, knowing and the destructive power of misinformation continue to resonate with readers today. This week, we’re revisiting Eleanor Wachtel’s 2001 conversation with Ian McEwan on Writers & Company, where they discussed Atonement and how Ian's own childhood shows up in the novel.

Check out the rest of the Writers & Company archive: https://digital.lib.sfu.ca/writers-company

Check out Mattea’s conversation with Ian McEwan from last fall: Ian McEwan has hope for humanity — here’s why

How does a nation convince its children that death is more valuable than life? That’s the haunting question at the heart of The Small Ones, a new novel by Nazanine Hozar. Following her acclaimed debut novel Aria, Nazanine draws on her own childhood memories of growing up in wartime Tehran to write a mythic, heartbreaking epic about young boys caught in the machinery of the Iran-Iraq war. It’s a story that’s part fable, part myth, part hero’s epic … and ultimately, it’s about what stays with us long after childhood is over. The Small Ones is a finalist for the 2026 Giller Prize. This week, Nazanine joins Mattea Roach to talk about experiencing war as a child, adding elements of mythology to the novel and how we can stop failing children on a societal level.

Liked this conversation? Keep listening:
Literature, liberation and Lolita in Iran
What is boyhood to a Palestinian teen?

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Amanda Peters’ debut novel, The Berry Pickers, was a massive hit about a young Indigenous girl who goes missing as her family picks blueberries in Maine. Now Amanda is back with The Birthing Tree, a moving novel about family secrets, midwifery and reclaiming traditional Indigenous birth practices. The novel follows Aliet, a Mi’kmaq woman who must return to her family home in rural Nova Scotia after her grandmother dies. Aliet has spent years away from the community and traditions she once loved … but how long can she outrun the family secrets that haunt her? And how does it all come back to the very tree that she was born under? This week, Amanda joins Mattea Roach to talk about her interest in midwifery, the nuances of being white-passing and highlighting the beauty of Nova Scotia in the novel.

Liked this conversation? Keep listening:
Michelle Good is reclaiming her mother's name
Meet hockey’s greatest (fictional) goon

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Bonnie Garmus says she came to poetry “kicking and screaming,” but her new novel is about why we need it more than ever. Peck & Peck follows a young man named Batter Gray who starts working at a prestigious poetry magazine. Batter is consumed by poetry, but it’s not an easy path to take in a world obsessed with profits … not to mention the complicated private affairs of his new colleagues. You might know Bonnie from her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry. It was a major hit novel and TV series. But did you know it took her 98 rejections to get there? This week, Bonnie tells Mattea Roach about what kept her writing during that time, her interest in twins and why she loves the impractical.

Liked this conversation? Keep listening:
Why you shouldn’t go gentle into that good night
Life of Pi author Yann Martel on the wars in your everyday

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Jenna Timmons-Oikawa is the winner of the 2026 CBC Nonfiction Prize. Her piece, Wawa Indian, was inspired by the discovery that her mother was taken in the Sixties Scoop. This was a government practice in Canada from the 1960s to 1980s that removed Indigenous children from their homes and placed them in foster homes or put them up for adoption with predominantly white families. In today's episode, the Ottawa-based writer speaks with Mattea Roach about themes of stolen heritage, reclamation and renewal that she explores in her winning story.

You can read Jenna's story here.

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