A poet in a Burundi war zone, part 1

Lives Less Ordinary

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.6 • 814 Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2022

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Content Warning: This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence

JP Bimeni risked his life to save a book of his verse. He started composing poetry to impress a girl, but was soon writing to address the ethnic tensions which threatened to tear his country apart. When violence did break out he dodged machete-wielding mobs to make it to safety. The mission to rescue his poetry almost cost him everything.

Presenter: Jo Fidgen Producer: Louise Morris

Transcript

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0:00.0	On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.
0:06.9	It was an extraordinary news story.
0:09.1	The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,
0:13.7	mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.
0:18.0	One of the great mysteries in English criminal history.
0:20.7	We're still looking for Lucan.
0:22.1	It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime.
0:25.9	I'm Alex von Tundselman.
0:27.3	This is The Lucan Obsession.
0:29.2	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.7	A bomb whose creation would tip the scales of global power.
0:36.9	A nuclear physicist who sought to redress the balance.
0:41.7	The Bomb, a podcast from the BBC World Service,
0:46.1	Season 2, available now.
0:50.6	Two of them run towards us, both hands, machete, machete.
0:54.9	Return.
0:56.7	Go back.
0:58.3	Everyone quiet.
1:00.0	Keep walking, but gently slowed.
1:02.3	And then he goes in the road and roll with machete on the road.
1:06.5	I say, any of you dare pass this line, we'll see.
1:14.2	One of the most shocking things about this story is just how fast it happened.
	...

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