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.

I stood at the border, stood at the edge and claimed it as central.

I claimed it as central and let the rest of the world move over to where I was.

So goes the famous statement by the high priestess

of African American fiction, Tony Morrison. And today on Open Book, we're honouring the outsider

legacy with stories from the hinterlands. Later on, I'll be speaking to two writers who bring

subculture to the four in their fiction. But first, a writer who is often described as being

daringly non-conformist.

Matrix is Lauren Groff's fourth novel, a previous book, Fates and Furies, Florida, and the Monsters of Templeton,

are all unashamedly ambitious. But while the Matrix continues some of her recurring themes around women and climate change,

this time the historical world she constructs

couldn't be more different. It opens with illegitimate 17-year-old Marie being banished

from the court of her half-brother, Henry II, by his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine. Marie sent to an

abbey in a cold, isolated part of 12th century England inhabited by starving nuns.

Becoming the abbess, she inspires a new generation of nuns to build a sort of utopia,

...