In the period between the wars nearby Mecklenburgh Square was home to many artists, writers and radicals. In a stunning work of rediscovery Francesca Wade focuses on five remarkable women who lived there: the modernist poet and visionary H.D; crime writer and translator of Dante Dorothy L. Sayers; classicist Jane Harrison; economic historian Eileen Power; an ... Show More
Yesterday
Lavinia Greenlaw & Mark Wallinger: On Difficulty (and Poetry)
In On Difficulty (Faber), her latest book of non-poetry, poet and essayist Lavinia Greenlaw explores the fascination, terror and opportunity of wrestling with the opaque, the obscure, the complex and the indeterminate. Is poetry really difficult, and do we like it more when it is ... Show More
58m 26s
Oct 14
Claudia Rankine & Victoria Adukwei Bulley: Triage
Triage (Allen Lane), Claudia Rankine’s new book, is an unclassifiable piece of writing, blending narrative, criticism and lyricism to create something capable of facing ‘the collective devastation of the present’ (in Saidiya Hartman’s words). Two friends meet in an art gallery af ... Show More
1h 11m
Oct 7
Transitions: Sita Balani & Jay Bernard
In Transitions, the latest title in MACK’s ‘Discourse’ series writers Sita Balani and Jay Bernard, guided by Stuart Hall’s notion of ‘conjuncture’, draw on literature, social theory, and lived experience to offer an urgent account of our fractured present. Their dialogue takes in ... Show More
58m 5s
Mar 2025
Virginia Woolf: life of the week
From To The Lighthouse to Mrs Dalloway, the writing of Virginia Woolf shook up literary norms and challenged societal ideas about what it meant to be a woman. In this 'life of the week' episode, Francesca Wade discusses the impact of Woolf's work, and the key moments of her life ... Show More
37m 5s
Nov 2024
Harriet Constable in “les Rencontres” — CHANEL Literary Rendezvous at Rue Cambon
Listen to author and critic Erica Wagner in conversation with Harriet Constable, writer of “The Instrumentalist”, her first novel published by Bloomsbury in 2024, in which she retraces the story of musical prodigy Anna Maria della Pietà, student of Antonio Vivaldi. Through this c ... Show More
39m 45s