Lancia Smith, one of the C.S. Lewis Foundation’s long time friends and supporters, as well as an excellent blogger, has recently posted an interview she conducted with Andrew Lazo.  Andrew is a frequent attendee of the C.S. Lewis Foundation’s many conferences, serving in the past as a staff member–whom you may remember from Bag-End!–and will be part of the faculty at the upcoming C.S. Lewis Summer Conference in San Diego, leading the C.S. Lewis 101 Track.

You can read part 1 of the interview here, and part 2 here.

Among the topics discussed are Lewis’s works, such as Till We Have Faces, Andrew’s perspective on the need for scholarship (particularly scholarship done on C.S. Lewis), and also more information about his recent discovery of the actual date of Lewis’s conversion to theism.

Even 50 years after his death, Lewis’s popularity continues to surge, making all of these topics important ones to consider.  Regarding Lewis’s enduring fame, Andrew recounts an amusing anecdote:

Many people, starting with Lewis and those who survived him, have long expected Lewis to fade quietly from the scene for half a century. But Lewis’s influence rightly grows. The story is told of how a student of Lewis’s (and later a great Chaucerian), Derek Brewer, came to Lewis’s rooms in Magdalen College for his first tutorial with the great man. He knocked, and J. R. R. Tolkien answered the door. “Is Lewis your tutor then? Ah, you’ll never get to the bottom of him!” Tolkien proclaimed.

For those interested, Lancia Smith’s website features many such interviews, including ones held with Os Guinness and Malcolm Guite.