麻豆约拍

In this series of monologues exploring the link between food and memory, poignant domestic dramas gradually unfold through the preparation of a special recipe.

In the first story by Helen Simpson, powerful memories are evoked when a mother bakes a birthday cake for her daughter, now no longer a child.

Helen Simpson is a novelist and hugely acclaimed short story writer. Her first collection, 'Four Bare Legs in a Bed and Other Stories', won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, while her book 'Hey Yeah Right Get a Life', a series of interlinked stories, won the Hawthornden Prize. She was one of Granta's twenty Best of Young British Novelists campaign in 1993, and is currently a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

The next story in the series comes from Kevin Barry, who won this year's Sunday Times short story award. Barry's first novel, 'City of Bohane', was shortlisted for the Costa first novel award, and a previous short story collection, 'There Are Little Kingdoms', won the Rooney prize for Irish Literature. In Barry's story, an insurance clerk of a certain age recreates the romantic spaghetti bolognese he cooked for the lass in the typing pool on his last date - some thirty years before...

The final story in the series is by Aminatta Forna, the award-winning author of two novels: 'The Memory of Love and Ancestor Stones'. In her story, a man struggles to cook for a young child after a terrible loss.

Producer: Justine Willett
Reader: Stella Gonet.