Eleanor Wachtel (born 1947 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian writer and broadcaster. She was the host of the flagship literary show Writers & Company on CBC Radio One, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in October 2015. Her interviews for Writers & Company are in-depth portraits of literary figures which over the years have included Saul Bellow, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje and Mordecai Richler. Kazuo Ishiguro, author of Remains of the Day, has called Wachtel "one of the very finest interviewers of authors I've come across anywhere in the world." At the end of their conversation in 2013, John le Carré told her, "You do it better than anyone I know."
Early life
Wachtel was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1947. Interested in books and reading from an early age, she was introduced by her Grade 8 teacher to the works of Shakespeare and Emily Brontë. She found high school intellectually stimulating, "surrounded by gifted classmates with diverse backgrounds". where she worked for the student newspaper and was on the executive of the Undergraduate Literary Society.
She subsequently served as the jury chair for the 2024 International Booker Prize.
Awards and honours
In 2002, Wachtel won the Jack Award for the promotion of Canadian books and authors.