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100 Novels That Shaped Our World

Mariella Frostrup explores the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. Today she discuss how the novel examines identity.

Through 2020 the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ will be celebrating the novel, and Open Book will be looking at the power stories have to transform us.

ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ’s β€œ100 Novels That Shaped Our World” ranges from popular page turners to literary classics under banners ranging from crime and conflict to love and romance. Mariella Frostrup discusses the place of "identity" in novels; the exploration of who we are and the writer's relationship with the story they tell.

She's joined by Ellah Wakatama OBE ,Chair of the Caine Prize for African writing and editor-at-large at Canongate. The novelist Charlotte Mendelson, whose novels span the complexity of women’s lives, her most recent Almost English was a Booker contender. Derek Owusu - a writer, poet and podcaster who has edited and contributed to Safe: On Black British Men Reclaiming Space and whose first work of fiction That Reminds Me has just been published.

The American novelist Jami Attenberg examines Sylvia's Plath's depiction of a young woman living with depression in The Bell Jar, and Mariella talks to An Yu author of "Braised Pork" which explores the journey of self discovery of a young widow in modern day Beijing.

Available now

28 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Sun 12 Jan 2020 16:00
  • Thu 16 Jan 2020 15:30

This Week's Book List

Read along with us - a list of books discussed in each programme

Books and Authors Podcast

Books and Authors Podcast

Open Book for author interviews and A Good Read for recommended reads

Listen now to books on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Sounds

Listen now to books on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Sounds

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