I was introduced to this new way of story-telling in our creative writing workshop this week and I loved it. It is new to me, but some of you may already know about Donald Barthelme’s “Concerning the Bodyguard” and how this work told that story.

As a former journalist I was used to asking the questions, collecting all the answers and then writing the story from the answers. I found it fascinating that you can tell almost a whole story by only asking questions. I found this technique much nicer in listening to the podcast, rather than trying to read the questions. The one below, introduced to me by Isabel D’Avila Winter in our creative writing workshop, Salman Rushdie reads Donald Barthelme’s “Concerning the Bodyguard“.

Storytelling 

Salman Rushdie also discusses Concerning the Bodyguard with The New Yorker’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman. “Concerning the Bodyguard” was published in the October 16, 1978, issue of The New Yorker, and was collected in “Forty Stories.” Salman Rushdie’s most recent book is “Luka and the Fire of Life.”

Listen to the podcast