You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one.

I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds.

I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects,

relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life.

So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature,

and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its audience, and maybe that's you.

So if you like this podcast, check out some others on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.

Hello, on today's program, an ambitious new novel about three generations of one family,

told by five voices over seven decades, traveling from 1940s Algeria to modern-day America.

We talk to author Claire Massoud about her very personal family saga, this strange, eventful history.

And a hundred years since his death, we explore the influence of Franz Kafka as a new short story

collection by ten modern writers,

including Ali Smith, Elif Bartman and Yian Lee, takes inspiration from his work.

We turn first to Claire Massoud.

She was long listed for the Man Booker Prize back in 2006 for the Emperor's Children, her

novel about three friends in Manhattan in the months leading up to the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center.

But her latest, this strange, eventful history, tells a longer sprawling story.

It's a capacious, multi-generational tale about a French Algerian family who were tangled up,

both in the tumult of the 20th century

and their own unspeakable secrets. A French household with Algerian roots was the setting for

her second novel, The Last Life, but this time the material is closer to home. The portrait of

...