Novelist Tahmima Anam plus was Nero a ruthless tyrant?

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2021

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Startup Wife is the title of Tahmima Anam's latest novel. Anne McElvoy talks to her about writing about the work/life balance and ideas about risk. New Generation Thinker Mirela Ivanova, from the University of Oxford, is researching Balkan history. She writes us a postcard about the strangely changing look of the main museum in Sofia, Bulgaria and why it's significant. And we look back at Roman history as the British Museum opens an exhibition Nero: the man behind the myth, talking to curator, Dr Thorsten Opper and historian, Tom Holland.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Tahmima Anam is taking part in the Hay Festival. Her novel The Startup Wife is being read on BBC Radio 4 from June 6th at 22.45 You can hear her on Free Thinking comparing notes about the writing life with crime author Ian Rankin in a conversation organised in partnership with the Royal Society of Literature and Bradford Lit Fest https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000khk6 She also discusses writing about love in her novel The Bones of Grace in a conversation with Alain de Boton and AL Kennedy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b078xlft And she's written a Radio 3 Essay about her place of refuge https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hwzc

Nero: the man behind the myth runs at the British Museum in London from May 27th 2021 to October 24th 2021.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who turn their research into radio.

You can find information about Hay Festival at hayfestival.com

Image: Tahmima Anam Credit: Abeer Y. Hoque

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music
0:27.0	when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.
0:33.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:38.1	Hello, I'm Anne McHelvoy, and in this episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast, we've a series of puzzles to wrestle with.
0:45.2	Can a marriage survive the world of technology start-ups? Fiddling as Rome Burns. Did we get the Emperor Nero all wrong?
0:53.1	And what is an Eastern European museum concealing about its
0:56.6	past? Stay listening to find out after this short message.
1:05.7	The human voice. Isn't it amazing? I'm Peter Brathwaite and I'm an opera singer, but I'm not here to tell you about my voice. I want to share my voice. Isn't it amazing? I'm Peter Brathwaid and I'm an opera singer, but I'm not here
1:12.5	to tell you about my voice. I want to share my love for five extraordinary voices that have
1:17.6	changed the way I sing and listen. Some you might know, others you probably won't, but they and their
1:23.4	stories all need to be heard. So have a listen to In Their Voices,
1:32.2	my series of essays diving deep into five voices that have hit me for six.
1:33.3	The essay.
1:38.2	Search for this series and all other available episodes in BBC Sounds. Music Today we'll be conjuring up some distant memories and places.
1:55.0	Eastern Europe under Ottoman rule, Nero's ancient Rome,
1:59.0	and the 21st century officers officers open-planned spaces,
2:02.6	endless panes of glass and a smattering of corporate art.
2:06.6	And for some of us, the pandemic has made it all a distant memory,
2:10.6	and that includes those working in technology startups,
2:14.6	the people who feature in Tamima Anam's new novel, The Startup Wife.
	...

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