On the next Great Conversations John Irving, one of America’s most revered authors, sits down with historian Sam Tanenhaus to discuss his enviable career in letters as well as his new novel, Avenue of Mysteries, which was released in November.

Great Conversations: “John Irving and Sam Tanenhaus” airs Monday Dec. 7 at 10/9 pm on KET.

Over the course of his prolific and acclaimed career as a writer, John Irving has published 13 novels, including The World According to Garp, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1980, The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany, all beloved classics in the American fiction canon.

Irving’s recently released novel Avenue of Mysteries details the struggles of Juan Diego, a writer living in the Southwest United States, who had endured a hardscrabble youth in Mexico, and his younger sister, Lupe, who reads minds and – reminiscent of Owen Meany in Irving’s earlier work – believes she can see the future. “I’m drawn to characters who see the future, or think they do,” Irving has said.

Irving is interviewed by Tanenhaus, a contributor to Bloomberg Politics and Bloomberg View, and a columnist and associate editor at the British monthly Prospect. Tanenhaus is also a former editor in chief of the Sunday Book Review and Week in Review at The New York Times.

The program was recorded at Irving’s and Tanenhaus’s recent appearance at the University of Louisville Kentucky Author Forum.

Great Conversations: “John Irving and Sam Tanenhaus” is a KET production. Producer-director is Tom Bickel, and executive producer is Teresa Day. Kentucky Author Forum is produced by Mary Moss Greenebaum and is sponsored by the University of Louisville, in partnership with Brown-Forman and The Humana Foundation.

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