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.

Today, on Open Book, we're exploring how the stories we choose to tell and the ones we leave untold can shape us.

Later, I'll be talking to Miranda France about her hybrid memoir that folds a story

of family tragedy into an astute portrait of a creative writing course. But first, a writer

who is no stranger to putting her own life at the heart of her work. Deborah Levy is an award-winning

novelist, poet and playwrights. Her trilogy of Living

Autobiographies captivated readers with its distinctive, playful first-person voice, and its

questioning of what it means to live as a woman and as an artist. In her newest novel, August

Blue, this theme returns as Elsa, a renowned concert pianist, begins a journey around

Europe in search of creative freedom and the chance to finally compose her own future.

I'm happy to say Deborah Levy joins me now in this studio. Hello, Deborah. To start with,

can you tell us a bit about your protagonist, Elsa, and where she is in her life when the novel starts?

Yes. There's a quote by Joan Didion that I love very much. Didion writes, I've already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be.

And before the book starts, Elsa actually begins to get closer to someone she wants to be.

She's a concert pianist.

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