You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

or you are the only animal,

who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello, and welcome to Bookworm.

My name is Michael Silverblad, and my guest today is Barry Unsworth.

Barry Unsworth's most recent book is Morality Play.

It's published by Doubleday.

His last book, Sacred Hunger, won the Booker Prize in England, leading to recognition worldwide. The book was Sacred Hungary,

as I've mentioned. This new book is set in the 15th century in England, and it follows the

adventures of a group of strolling players. It is concerned with that strange intersection between public event and representation,

playmaking. And these players blunder into a town in which there is a murder. They proceed

to incorporate the murder out of economic necessity

into the subject matter of the play that presenting in the inn yard there. And of course,

having been in America the last witnesses of a media circus of a time when entertainment has been substituted for by trial and mystery.

I wonder, you go to historical moments to illuminate the present, yes?

Yes, that's what I try to do.

But in order to do that, you have to get the past right as well.

I think that it's like any sort of symbolic use of material.

The stronger and more authentic you make it,

the more the parallels that you try to make can be evident, can be felt by the reader.

Now, are you professionally a historian?

...