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.

Hello, today we'll be talking to one of the original dirty realists,

as well as to a realist concerned with dirty business.

And we hear about the novels that give insight to Sudan's tumultuous

history in light of the current conflict. Richard Ford has spent some 40 years writing the world

according to Frank Bascombe, from the sports writer to Independence Day to the lay of the land,

and now to his final appearance in the new novel,

Be Mine, Frank has shared his panoramic and idiosyncratic view of American social, political and cultural life.

Be Mine is both tender and tough, as Frank undertakes a road trip across the country with his son, who is dying of ALS,

a form of motor neurone disease.

I caught out with Richard Ford in Dublin recently and asked why he'd written a further installment

after the lay of the land, something he said he wouldn't do.

Well, when I said that about the lay of the land, it was because I completely met it.

Writing a novel for me is an exhaustive process, about which I mean I exhaust all my stored up resources.

I don't mean physical resources. I use up all the stuff that I had that I wanted to

...