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

it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream

van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, we're at the British Library in London for a special edition of free thinking

to celebrate the Royal Society of Literature on Darche Prize,

awarded for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry that evokes the spirit of a place.

The shortlist for this year's prize will be announced after this event,

so please do check our website for details,

but I'm delighted to be joined now by four former Ondarce Prize winners.

They are Hisham Mata, Pascal Petty, Alan Johnson, and Peter Pomerantsev.

So I want to talk to you all about how you conjured up this strong sense of place in your

respective prize-winning works. But first, I'm curious to know

for each of you, what transforms that abstract, vague notion of space into place, this physical space

with meanings and values? So is it the people who inhabit it or the memories associated with it or does it

even have to have human dimensions at all? Pascal, can I start with you? Well, for me it starts with

the wilderness and the animals and I bring people into that,

even though there are people who live there,

but I bring people to,

I think to love them really,

because I love the wilderness and the animals.

So that's, I try to clash things together to change them.

Peter, what turns space into place for you?

...