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Desert Island Discs

Classic Desert Island Discs: Lemn Sissay

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.413.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 September 2019

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Another chance to hear Lemn Sissay's Desert Island Discs from October 2015. Interviewed by Kirsty Young. As a poet, writer and playwright, much of his work tells the story of his search for his birth parents. Born to a young Ethiopian woman who wanted him temporarily fostered while she completed her studies, he was with a family until he was 12. He would spend the next five years in a number of children's homes where he began to write. On leaving care at 17, he self-published his first book of poetry while on the dole. Several poetry collections, plays and programmes for radio and TV followed and his work has taken him around the world. He was the first poet to be commissioned to write for the 2012 London Olympics and his success has also brought him two doctorates and an MBE for services to literature. He is about to be installed as Chancellor of the University of Manchester, an elected post he will hold for the next seven years. He takes writers' workshops for care-leavers and set up Culture World, the first black writers' workshop. DISC ONE: Yegna featuring Aster Aweke - Taitu DISC TWO: Nils Frahm - Says DISC THREE: The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards - Amazing Grace DISC FOUR: Symphony No 3, 2nd movement - Henryk Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful songs DISC FIVE: Annie Lennox - Cold DISC SIX: Aretha Franklin - Bridge Over Troubled Water DISC SEVEN: Prince, featuring Rosie Gaines - Nothing Compares 2 U DISC EIGHT: BB King - Better Not Look Down Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

0:05.0

Hi, Laura LeVernier.

0:06.5

Desert Island Discs is taking its usual summer break,

0:09.0

so to keep you entertained until we're back on air,

0:11.4

we've chosen some fabulous additions from our back catalog

0:14.5

to listen to while you're on your holidays.

0:17.2

As usual, as this is a podcast,

0:19.2

the music has been shortened for rights reasons.

0:22.2

This week we're featuring the poet, Lemsissé.

0:24.9

His program is one of the most moving I've ever heard.

0:28.2

I do hope you enjoy listening.

0:30.0

Lems was interviewed by Kirstie Young in 2015.

0:33.5

Music

0:50.0

My cast away this week is Lemsissé, writer, playwright and poet.

0:53.8

His skill with language has brought him an MBE,

0:56.6

two doctrines and fans around the world,

0:58.8

including Desmond Tutu.

1:00.8

The significance of words revealed himself early in his life

1:04.4

at 17.

1:05.6

He was given two bits of paper

1:07.0

and what he read was to change everything.

1:09.8

One was a letter from his birth mother,

...

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