A conversation with Tim Kang, hosted by C.S. Soong, sitting in for Richard Wolinsky.

Aubergine, a play by Julia Cho about family, food, and forgiveness, is having its world premiere at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Tim Kang, who plays the lead character discusses the play and also his perspective as an Asian American actor.

Umberto Eco, who died on February 19, 2016 at the age of 84, was one of the world’s leading semiologists, studying the relationship of signs and symbols to meaning and language. He was also a well-known and well respected novelist. The Name of the Rose, a detective novel set in the middle ages, became a surprise best-seller, and he followed it up with Foucault’s Pendulum, which dealt with world conspiracies, and five later novels. In 2005, Richard Wolinsky sat down with Umberto Eco in the KPFA studios while the Italian writer was on tour for his most recent novel, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana.