logo
episode-header-image
Jul 2010
52m 59s

World Book Club: Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Bbc World Service
About this episode

Part stunning literary thriller, part gothic novel, the book The Shadow of the Wind is a page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.

It is a potent mix of a coming-of-age novel and a tragic love story set in Barcelona's post-war years. Harriet Gilbert puts questions from the audience to the author Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

Up next
Jul 5
Graeme Macrae Burnet
On this episode of ‘World Book Club’ Harriett Gilbert speaker with with Graeme Macrae Burnet about his riveting historical crime novel ‘His Bloody Project’ Set in a remote Scottish community in the 1800s, the story centres on a brutal triple murder and the person who admits guilt ... Show More
49m 20s
Jun 7
N.K Jemisin
In this episode of World Book Club, Harriet talks with one of the world’s best-loved sci-fi and fantasy authors, the four time Hugo award winner N.K Jemisin. Which of her plethora of books did we choose? Her 10th novel, and love letter to New York, ‘The City We Became’.The story ... Show More
55m 43s
May 3
Abdulrazak Gurnah: Paradise
Harriett Gilbert talks with Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah about his hauntingly beautiful novel Paradise.It tells the story of Yusuf, a 12 year-old boy living in East Africa at the beginning of the 20th Century. Sold off to settle his father’s debts, Yusuf embarks on a journey ... Show More
49m 26s
Recommended Episodes
May 2024
Fantasy Superstar Leigh Bardugo on Her New Novel
In the world of fantasy fiction, Leigh Bardugo is royalty: Her Grishaverse novels are mainstays on the young adult best-seller list, her “Shadow and Bone” trilogy has been adapted for a Netflix series and her adult novels “Ninth House” and “Hell Bent” established her as a force t ... Show More
41m 44s
Feb 2023
Stories of Love
Proust as an agony uncle, Romeo and Juliet rewritten as 21st century Welsh teenagers in a new drama by Gary Owen, the Lesbian coming of age novel by Rita Mae Brown that inspired the lead character in Willy Russell's Educating Rita to change her name and a new book inspired by the ... Show More
44m 44s
Feb 2023
L'assassinat raté de Madame Bovary
C'est un nom qui est tombé aux oubliettes : Ernest Pinard. Et pourtant, c'est grâce à ce Procureur zélé du Second Empire que Gustave Flaubert et Charles Baudelaire doivent beaucoup de leur notoriété. Pour quelle raison ? C'est ce que vous allez découvrir dans ce nouvel épisode de ... Show More
6m 19s
Jul 2023
Reading Update & Some Answers || عن الكتب و كذا جواب
In this episode I share with you my reading update so far. It's July and I should have read more books than I did but life got in the way. According to goodreads I am 13 books behind schedule. The titles I shared in the episode: The Roughest Draft By Emily Wibberley, Austin Siege ... Show More
50m 37s
Dec 2023
Kadare, Gospodinov, Kafka and Dickens
The Palace of Dreams is a novel from 1981 that is ostensibly set in the 19th century Ottoman empire, but the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare cleverly smuggles in thinly veiled criticism of the totalitarian state presided over by Enver Hoxha. The book was duly banned shortly after p ... Show More
45m 7s
Jan 2014
Donna Tartt - The Secret History
With James Naughtie. Donna Tartt discusses her cult debut novel The Secret History, first published in 1992. "I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell." In a rare visit t ... Show More
27m 42s