I was born in the United Kingdom in 1984.

My great-grandfather, however, was born in what was then called the Russian Empire,

Zaris Russia.

He was born in a city called Baku.

It's in modern-day Azerbaijan.

He had to leave after After 1917, the Russian

revolution and the Russian Civil War, as it became known, he moved to Iran, which was where my

grandfather and my father were both born. My dad was in the UK, and I was only born in the UK,

because of another revolution, the Iranian revolution of 1979.

Now, for much of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, we thought those days were over.

We believed magically that revolutions and wars and displacement was disappearing into the mists of history that we were moving into something

quite different. What if we're not? What if some of the disasters, war, genocide, famine,

that marked much of the 20th century is coming up in front of us. What if it's not

all behind? To discuss all of that from migration to rising geopolitical tensions between the

United States, China, Russia and Europe, I can think a few better guests than today's. Leah Earpie

wrote a fantastic book about growing up in Stalinist Albania Free. Her latest book,

Indignity is about her grandmother's story instead. Like I say, these are narratives like my great

grandfathers from a century ago, but increasingly in 2025, they feel more relevant than ever.

Leah Irby, welcome to Downstream. Thank you for having me. It's great to have you back on, second time. Yeah, it's wonderful to be here. Your first book, three, was translated into how many languages? 37. 37. Which was the sort of not strange, there's not just saying as a strange language, but which was the most sort of esoteric, unusual language? I guess a combination of which one was most esoteric and the most

successful country. It was Iceland. Yeah, because it was a bestseller for a really long time,

and it's not a country that I would have associated to great interest in Albania and Albanian

politics and history. We're talking about your latest book, Indignity.

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