Himal Interviews: Tariq Ali on a life in writing and dissent

In an episode of Himal’s Southasia Review of Books podcast from December 2024, we speak to the renowned Pakistani-British activist, writer and public intellectual Tariq Ali about his new memoir, You Can’t Please All: Memoirs 1980-2024 (Verso, November 2024).

Through anecdotes and reflections, Ali offers glimpses of the fascinating company he has kept – Edward Said, Satyajit Ray, Hugo Chávez, Benazir Bhutto – as well as moving accounts of his family and how they lived during the early years of Pakistan.

A sharp-eyed eyewitness to a chaotic and confusing world, Ali understands that its problems don’t ever change, they just take different forms. In this memoir, he recounts a life committed to socialist and anti-imperialist activism, to writing and cultural intervention that ushered in a new era of dissent. 

The episode is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Youtube.

This is an edited transcript of the podcast interview. Please listen to the corresponding audio before quoting from it.