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In Saudi Arabia, cartographer Frances Shore discovers that the streets are not a woman's territory. Read by Anna Maxwell Martin.

Nearly 30 years on from its original publication, Hilary Mantel's third novel is still as disturbing, incisive and illuminating as ever. In an unusual collaboration, the author has revisited the book to create, with the abridger, this new ten-part serialisation.

Frances Shore is a cartographer by trade, but when her husband's work takes them to Saudi Arabia she finds herself unable to map either the ever changing landscape or the Kingdom's heavily veiled ways of working. The regime is corrupt and harsh, the expatriates are hard-drinking money-grubbers, and her Muslim neighbours are secretive and watchful.

She soon discovers that the streets are not a woman's territory. Confined in her flat, she finds her sense of self-beginning to dissolve. She hears footsteps, sounds of distress from the supposedly empty flat above. She has only constantly changing rumours to hang on to, and no one with whom to share her creeping unease.

Frances gives her first dinner party.

Omnibus of the last five of ten episodes read by Anna Maxwell Martin.

Author: Hilary Mantel
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
A Pier production for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4 first broadcast in 2016

1 hour, 15 minutes

Last on

Mon 19 Aug 2019 02:30

Broadcasts

  • Sun 28 Aug 2016 14:30
  • Mon 29 Aug 2016 02:30
  • Sun 18 Aug 2019 14:30
  • Mon 19 Aug 2019 02:30