The New Statesman.

Why do we read fiction?

Why does the novel matter?

I'm Tom Gatti, and you're listening to Culture from The New Statesman,

a weekly podcast exploring the cultural moments that define our world.

Through Deborah Levy's witty, revelatory trilogy of living autobiographies

and brilliantly uncanny novels such as Swimming Home and The Man Who Saw Everything,

she has forged subversive new forms of writing and won legions of fans.

Late last year, she took to the stage at the South Bank Centre in London

to give the new statesman Goldsmith Prize lecture on why the novel matters. I hosted the lecture

and I was struck by Deborah Levy's conception of the novel as a living thing, a way of negotiating

with reality, maybe even making your own reality. It made me rethink

what novels can do and what they are for. And so I wanted to share it with you today.

Thank you for your warm welcome. The last time I held lots of A4 in my hand,

it's when I was about 23 and I was writing poetry

and we used to read it in pubs

and we were completely unpublished,

had a five minute slot each,

so any time someone had a lot of A-4 in their hands,

our hearts used to sink.

Let yourself go.

Pull out from the depths, those thoughts that you do not understand,

...