In this excerpt from a longer programme, John Lehmann speaks to Aldous Huxley as the novelist and essayist shares his thoughts on the art of writing. Since World War Two, Huxley has tended to concentrate on factual writing, yet he does not fear that he has lost faith in the novel. He does, however, speculate that recordings of spoken literature might one day take the place of written text.

Aldous Huxley returned to the themes of his most famous novel, Brave New World, in a non-fiction work called Brave New World Revisited, which was published in 1958, the same year that this programme was broadcast. The novel-in-progress he describes in this interview could refer to Island, which came out in 1962. Huxley died on 22 November 1963, the same day as CS Lewis (author of The Chronicles of Narnia) and US President John F Kennedy.

Please note, the original recording includes a brief dip in sound quality during this interview.

↗ Originally broadcast 12 October 1958.