Hi, it's Nicola Cochlin. Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them. My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right. In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world. Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela, Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey, history's youngest heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin.

Listen on BBC Sounds.

Hello, I'm Krista Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 2007.

Music My castaway this week is the writer Thomas Caneli.

As a novelist, he's been telling stories for over four decades.

With more than 30 titles to his credit, he's one of our most distinguished authors.

In 1982, his fame spread beyond his homeland of Australia when he won the Booker Prize with his historical novel, Schindler's Ark.

It was made into the landmark movie Schindler's List,

and for many, the extraordinary true story of one man risking his life

and losing his fortune to save more than a thousand Jews

was a uniquely powerful way of understanding the horrors of the Holocaust.

Religion and war have been themes throughout much of his work and indeed his own life.

Growing up, his father's absence during the Second World War helped to create a serious-minded child

who latterly trained for the priesthood.

But after six years in the seminary

and just weeks before his ordination,

he quit coming to regard the church

as a cold and largely self-interested corporate institution.

Thomas Cannel get, there is so much more than just Schindler's Ark to talk about.

But let's start there. It's a good place to start.

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