On this week’s episode, Claire talks to Salman Rushdie about Quichotte, his Booker-nominated novel inspired by Don Quixote. The novel follows ageing salesman Ismail Smile, who adopts the pseudonym Quichotte as he travels across modern America to find a television star he has fallen in love with. It also contains a meta strand, about a New York-based Indian author called Sam DuChamp, who is writing Quichotte’s story.

Cervantes’ novel is widely regarded as the first European novel, and is arguably also the first road-trip novel. Claire, Sian and Richard take a look at the best examples, and how it has become a useful way to deal with the geographical and cultural behemoth that is the US.