Fresh Air

Monday through Friday, 11am - 12noon; Monday through Thursday, 7pm - 8pm

Terry Gross

Fresh Air opens the window on contemporary arts and issues with guests from worlds as diverse as literature and economics. Terry Gross hosts this multi-award-winning daily interview and features program. The veteran public radio interviewer is known for her extraordinary ability to engage guests of all dispositions. Every weekday she delights intelligent and curious listeners with revelations on contemporary societal concerns.

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News/Talk

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Stephen Sondheim: Examining His Lyrics And Life

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Sondheim, shown here in 1974, won the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Sunday in the Park with George. He has also received eight Tony Awards, eight Grammy awards and a Kennedy Center Honor.

Sondheim (left) wrote the lyrics for West Side Story; classical-music superstar Leonard Bernstein (center) was the composer, Jerome Robbins the director and choreographer. The story of the show's genesis is told in the special NPR series 50 Years of West Side Story.

By editor

Stephen Sondheim's 1981 musical Merrily We Roll Along is in the middle of a two-week run at the New York City Center as part of an Encores! Production. Portions of the interview running today were originally broadcast on April 21, 2010 and Oct. 28, 2010.

10:26 am

Wed February 15, 2012

Nathan Englander: Assimilating Thoughts Into Stories

Credit Juliana Sohn

Nathan Englander grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family. He now splits his time between New York and Madison, Wis.

By editor

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The stories in Nathan Englander's new collection are based largely on his experiences growing up as a modern Orthodox Jew with an overprotective mother.

In What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Englander writes about his own faith — and what it means to be Jewish — in stories that explore religious tension, Israeli-American relations and the Holocaust.

10:01 am

Wed February 15, 2012

More Than Melancholy: 'In-Flight' Stories Soar

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Credit Random House

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Credit Derek Thompson / Random House

Helen Simpson is also the author of the short-story collections Getting a Life, Four Bare Legs in a Bed and Dear George.

By Maureen Corrigan

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The Brits: You've got to hand it to them. The Empire may be long gone, but they still reign supreme when it comes to effortlessly exuding mordant wit. For anyone who savors the acerbic literary likes of Evelyn Waugh or the Amises, father and son, Helen Simpson is just the ticket.

10:20 am

Tue February 14, 2012

The History Of The FBI's Secret 'Enemies' List

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Credit Anonymous / Library of Congress

J. Edgar Hoover was the first director of the FBI. He introduced fingerprinting and forensic techniques to the crime-fighting agency, and pushed for stronger federal laws to punish criminals who strayed across state lines. He also kept secret files on more than 20,000 Americans he deemed "subversive."

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Hoover saw Martin Luther King Jr. as an "enemy of the state," says author Tim Weiner.

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Four years after Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Tim Weiner published Legacy of Ashes, his detailed history of the CIA, he received a call from a lawyer in Washington, D.C.

"He said, 'I've just gotten my hands on a Freedom of Information Act request that's 26 years old for [FBI Director] J. Edgar Hoover's intelligence files. Would you like them?' " Weiner tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "And after a stunned silence, I said, 'Yes, yes.' "

11:09 am

Mon February 13, 2012

Viola Davis: The Fresh Air Interview

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Credit Dale Robinette / Dreamworks Pictures

Minny (Octavia Spencer) and Aibileen (Davis) are two domestics who team up with a writer to break the code of silence about the conditions they work under in 1960s Mississippi.

Credit Dale Robinette / DreamWorks

Davis tells Fresh Air that the history she imagined for Aibileen included a yearning to write — and a gift for words.

By editor

Actress Viola Davis has been nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayal of the maid Aibileen in the film The Help, set in 1960s Mississippi. But not everyone has applauded the film, which has been criticized for its portrayal of black domestic servants in the civil rights era.

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10:48 am

Thu February 16, 2012