22 July 2021
24 minutes
Photo: Jocelyn Nguyen
Arifa Akbar is the chief theatre critic at ‘The Guardian’. A journalist for over 20 years, she previously held the position of literary editor at ‘The Independent’ and worked as an arts and news correspondent. She speaks with Georgina Godwin about her new memoir ‘Consumed’ which is a personal exploration of her own grief after her sister died at the age of 45 from tuberculosis. In this moving debut, Arifa explores illness, sisterhood, and the role of art in life and loss.
22 July 2021
Share episode
DownloadWant more radio episodes like these in your inbox?
Sign up to Monocle’s email newsletters to stay on top of news and opinion, plus the latest from the magazine, radio, film and shop.
Meet the Writers - latest episodes
Christos Tsiolkas
The Melbourne-based author talks about how his life has changed since his multi-award-winning 2008 novel ‘The Slap’ made him one of Australia’s most celebrated writers. Born to immigrant Greek parents, his writing confronts…
Viet Thanh Nguyen
Is the near-universal game of “cowboys and Indians” just positive propaganda for genocide? When a Vietnamese-American watches ‘Apocalypse Now’, does he identify with the victim or perpetrator? As the Pulitzer Prize-winning…
Tom Baragwanath
Author Tom Baragwanath hails from New Zealand and lives in France. He grew up in the remote farming community of Wainuioru, separated from Wellington by the Rimutaka mountain range. While working for the government on Māori…
Wanjiru Koinange and Angela Wachuka
Nairobi-based nonprofit Book Bunk, the brainchild of Wanjiru Koinange and Angela Wachuka, restores existing public libraries and installs new libraries in public spaces. Its flagship project in the Kenyan capital is the…
Helen Russell
UK author and journalist Helen Russell left her job in London as editor of Marie Clare and relocated to Jutland, Denmark, with her husband in 2013. What initially set out to be a year-long trip quickly turned into a decade…
Denise Dorrance
US cartoonist and illustrator, Denise Dorrance’s sharp, satirical work appears regularly in magazines and newspapers such as the ‘The Spectator’ and ‘The Sunday Times’. Her debut graphic novel, ‘Polar Vortex’, has been…
Jane Cholmeley
Jane Cholmeley co-founded and opened the feminist Silver Moon Bookshop in London during the Thatcher era to promote the work of female authors. It quickly came to play a vital role in the second-wave feminist movement.…
Tabitha Lasley
It was the end of a relationship in London that led Tabitha Lasley to pack her bags, leave her journalism job and move to Aberdeen, Scotland, to pursue a story that she’d been sitting on for years. She grew up on the Wirral…
Michael Cunningham
American novelist and screenwriter Michael Cunningham is best known for his 1998 novel ‘The Hours’, which became a ‘New York Times’ bestseller and won both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize. His work has appe…
Alice Haddon and Ruth Field
In 2020, Alice Haddon and Ruth Field came together to develop an alternative offering to the traditional 50-minute therapy session, which became a wellness retreat designed for women known as The Heartbreak Hotel. Alice is…
Paul Caruana Galizia
After his mother was killed by a car bomb in 2017, Paul Caruana Galizia became a journalist and has since won several honours and awards for his reporting, including the Orwell Prize special award. The assassination of his…
Daisy Goodwin
UK screenwriter, TV producer and novelist, Daisy Goodwin has written the bestsellers ‘My Last Duchess’, ‘The Fortune Hunter’ and ‘Victoria’, as well as eight poetry anthologies, including ‘101 Poems That Could Save Your…
Maureen Freely
US journalist, novelist, translator and professor Maureen Freely joins Georgina Godwin in the studio. She is best known as the translator of Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk’s work. Freely has also written ‘The Life of the Party’…
Cat Bohannon
American researcher, scholar, writer and poet Cat Bohannon speaks to Georgina Godwin about her debut book, ‘Eve’, a whistle-stop tour of mammalian development that begins in the Jurassic Era and recasts the traditional…
The best of 2023: Lydia Sandgren
To welcome in the new year, we look back at one of our favourite conversations from 2023, with Lydia Sandgren. The Swedish psychologist and author spent 10 years writing her debut novel, which won the prestigious August…
