麻豆约拍

A series of programmes that sets up a unique pairing between writers from countries challenged by refugee and migration issues with short story writers from Britain. Each foreign story was given to a British writer who wrote their own response, in an exchange of fiction that aims to explode myths, explore shared concerns and extend the boundaries of the short story.

In A Good Soldier by Maaza Mengiste, the brutality of the past pursues an Ethiopian father into exile and shockingly marks his relationship with his young son. The reader is Amir El Masry.

In Helen Dunmore鈥檚 response, Handsome Daddy, an alert dinner lady notices worrying signs of abuse as a young boy lines up in the lunch queue. The reader is Sara Markland.

Maaza Mengiste is an Ethiopian-American novelist, essayist and photographer whose debut novel Beneath the Lion鈥檚 Gaze was one of The Guardian鈥檚 ten best contemporary African books. Helen Dunmore is a prize-winning British novelist, short-story writer and poet whose latest novel, Exposure, was published in January.

A Pier production for 麻豆约拍 Radio 4