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Lionel Shriver on her controversial novel The New Republic

Lionel Shriver discusses her controversial novel The New Republic, the legacy of the American classic Mrs Bridge and how the classics should inspire budding writers.

Lionel Shriver discusses her controversial novel The New Republic, which looks at the relationship between terrorism, the media and achieving political goals. Set in the fictional southern peninsular of Portugal, a windblown, illiterate, gastronomically awful place, full of evil tasting and foul smelling local fruit, Barba has become the centre for a terrorist organisation and therefore the focus of the world's media.

"Her first name was India - she was never able to get used to it". So starts Evan S Connell's 1959 classic novel Mrs Bridge, a tale of a woman trapped in her comfortable 1930s mid America world. We speak to its author, now in his late eighties, and to Joshua Ferris about its enduring appeal

Reading Like A Writer, A Guide For People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them - author Francine Prose, who has been lecturing in literature for over twenty years, argues there is much to learn for writers and readers alike in the mining of the classic.

Producer: Andrea Kidd.

Available now

28 minutes

Last on

Thu 14 Jun 2012 15:30

Broadcasts

  • Sun 10 Jun 2012 16:00
  • Thu 14 Jun 2012 15:30

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