40 years In Patagonia, Nathan Englander and Sandi Toksvig's new children's novel
A Good Read
BBC
4.2 • 848 Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2017
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mariella Frostrup celebrates the 40th anniversary of the classic travel book In Patagonia. She's joined by the Observer theatre critic Susannah Clapp, who edited the book, and travel writer William Dalrymple who both admire its ground breaking mix of memoir, history and reportage.
Also on the programme, Nathan Englander talks about his new novel Dinner at the Centre of the Earth. Best known for his short story collections this is a spy thriller and a love story based around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sandi Toksvig discusses her tale for children set in the American Midwest in the mid nineteenth century, and Dennis Glover on the difficulties of fictionalizing George Orwell, a larger than life character who seems to have been misrepresented in fiction.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers. |
| 0:08.0 | But the man who often found, tortured and sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA |
| 0:12.0 | was himself an informer, a secret British army agent with the codename Stakeknife. |
| 0:18.0 | Who gets to play God? And why me? Why my family? |
| 0:21.4 | When lies are still being told to this day, who do you believe? |
| 0:25.1 | I wouldn't even know where to start, and I'm with the IRA. |
| 0:28.5 | Steakknife. |
| 0:29.6 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:32.4 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:37.1 | My name's Linda Davies, |
| 0:38.3 | and I commissioned podcasts for BBC Sounds. As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the |
| 0:43.8 | very highest quality, featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you |
| 0:50.7 | may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things, |
| 0:55.5 | like pop stars, poltergeists, cricket and conspiracy theories. |
| 1:00.6 | And that's just a few examples. |
| 1:02.5 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, |
| 1:05.6 | find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 1:08.9 | This is the BBC. |
| 1:13.4 | Hello, it's been a good week for experimental fiction, |
| 1:16.7 | as George Sanders, who I spoke to in March, scoops the man Booker. |
| 1:20.3 | So today we've got a timely look at other writers who play with form. |
| 1:24.9 | Later, we're travelling to the centre of the earth in Nathan Englander's |
... |
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