Meet the Writers
Georgina Godwin in conversation with top authors. Explore their inspirations, writing processes, and the stories behind their books.
Latest Episodes
Paul Kenyon
Kenyon is a Bafta-winning journalist. His new book, ‘Dictatorland: The Men Who Stole Africa’, describes the violence and excess of some of the continent’s strongmen – and behind them, the greed and complicity of the West.
Sulaiman Adonia
Eritrean-born writer Addonia grew up in a Sudanese refugee camp and arrived unaccompanied in the UK without a word of English. Since then he’s been published around the world in more than 20 languages; he tells Georgina Godwin about his amazing journey.
Kamal Ahmed
This week we examine identity through the eyes of prominent journalist Kamal Ahmed. He discusses his dual heritage – his mother is English and father was Sudanese – in his new book ‘The Life and Times of a Very British Man’.
André Aciman
Aciman is the author of ‘Call me by your Name’, now an award-winning film. He’s also an American memoirist, essayist, novelist and scholar of 17th-century literature – we talk about his work and life.
Agnes Poirier
Poirier’s latest book, ‘Left Bank: Art, Passion and the rebirth of Paris 1940-1950’, covers everything from German occupation during the Second World War, through liberation to the birth of existentialism and the Fourth Republic.
Gail Jones
Jones, one of Australia’s most celebrated authors, has been winning almost every prize going recently – not least making the longlist for the Man Booker and the Orange prize. She tells us about her journey through fiction.
Michael Quetting
Quetting talks to us about an extraordinary project – and the resulting book ‘Papa Goose’. It’s a work that charts the moving and often hilarious story of bringing up seven goslings from egg to independence over the course of a year.
Robert Ferguson
A former postman, factory worker and cook, Ferguson had many lives. Then he took a course in Scandinavian studies, moved to Norway and his literary career began. We talk to him about what it means to be Scandinavian.
Lauren Groff
In 2015, then-president Barack Obama named Groff’s ‘Fates and Furies’ his book of the year. She was named by Granta as one of the best young American writers of her generation and has a new collection of short stories out. We talk about her journey so far.
Peter Stamm
As we spend the week broadcasting from our Zürich bureau, we talk to Swiss author Peter Stamm, one of the country’s bestselling authors.
