NPR’s Fresh Air radio show has a fascinating 25 minute interview with author, SF and comic books fan, Michael Chabon. Host Terry Gross talked with Chabon about his newest book The Yiddish Policemen’s Union which is a murder-mystery novel set in an alternate history Alaska in which a flood of European Jews have settled in Alaska. It sounds like a fascinating book (the audiobook is coming out UNABRIDGED from HarperAudio).

Chabon’s novel trades on the fact that a Jewish homeland, other than Israel, was a major possibility immediately after WWII. In the interview Chabon mentions the fact that Uganda, Madagascar, Australia, Suriname and Alaska were all once considered suitable homelands for the Jews of Europe. I myself read a fascinating book last year about the “Fugu Plan” – a very real plan by the Empire of Japan to settle European Jews in, of all places, newly enslaved Manchuria!

To listen to the interview, CLICK HERE, you’ll need a RealAudio or WindowsMedia player.

Also, over on the HarperCollins website for the novel, there’s a flashy, flash animated trailer for The Yiddish Policemen’s Union which features an excerpt from Peter Reigert’s reading of the audiobook.

posted by Jesse Willis