In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers.

But the man who often found, tortured and sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA

was himself an informer, a secret British army agent with the codename Stakeknife.

Who gets to play God? And why me? Why my family? When lies are still being told to this day,

who do you believe? I wouldn't even know where to start and I'm with the IRA.

Steakknife. Listen first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.

Hello, in a world that's rupturing and transforming,

how do novelists condense momentous change into the pages of their stories?

We hear from some hotspots, namely the United States, Northern Ireland and India.

And we start with a book club favourite,

whose mission to incorporate the big issues of the day into her fiction has led to a string of best-selling and thought-provoking novels.

From climate change in flight behaviour to America's role as an evangelical coloniser in the Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver has consistently embraced politically engaged fiction.

Her latest, unsheltered, is no exception,

juxtaposing two narratives, one of a progressive science teacher struggling against old

orthodoxies in 19th century New Jersey, the other a contemporary middle-class family,

falling apart as their house threatens to do the same.

Willa, the embattled matriarch, whose adult children, TIG and Zieg, constantly clash over

politics, wonders how two hardworking people do everything right in life and arrive in their

50s essentially destitute. One under-employed breadwinner, five dependents.

Willa recorded her freelance income in an Excel file but was too embarrassed to hit the Sigma

function and learn her year-to-date total.

In her college days, she'd waitress.

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