logo
episode-header-image
Jan 2022
42m 29s

From the archive: The brutal world of sh...

The Guardian
About this episode
We are raiding the Audio Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2018: For millions of Algerians, life has been shaped by years of conflict, unemployment and state repression. Sheep fighting offers an arena where young men can escape the constant supervision of the state. By Hannah Rae Armstrong. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod
Up next
Aug 18
Starmer v Starmer: why is the former human rights lawyer so cautious about defending human rights?
Many of his supporters hoped the prime minister would restore the UK’s commitment to international law. Yet Labour’s record over the past year has been curiously mixed By Daniel Trilling. Read by Simon Darwen. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod 
46m 39s
Aug 15
Best of 2025 … so far: The savage suburbia of Helen Garner: ‘I wanted to dong Martin Amis with a bat’
Every Wednesday and Friday in August we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction from the editorial team to explain why we’ve chosen it. This week, from March: over 50 years, she has become one of the most revered ... Show More
41 m
Aug 13
Best of 2025 … so far: ‘I am not who you think I am’: how a deep-cover KGB spy recruited his own son
Every Wednesday and Friday in August we will publish some of our favourite audio long reads of 2025, in case you missed them, with an introduction from the editorial team to explain why we’ve chosen it. This week, from May: for the first time, the man the KGB codenamed ‘the Inher ... Show More
51m 52s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2021
Syria’s decade of conflict: Syria's secret library
Syrian born reporter Lina Sinjab presents a special series from Assignment’s award winning archive on the 10 years of civil war in her country.This week an extraordinary story from 2016, reported by Mike Thomson, about a secret library stored in the basement of a crumbling house ... Show More
27m 12s
Jan 2024
100 Years War on Palestine with Rashid Khalidi [Rerun 2021 Podcast Episode]
We discussed Rashid Khalidi's work as an editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies, as the President of the Middle East Studies Association, and as an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington Arab-Israeli peace negotiations.**** ABOUT THIS IS NOT A WATE ... Show More
51m 56s
Sep 2022
Nahid Shahalimi Gathers the Voices of Afghan Women
It was just a year ago that the U.S. withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. On that date, Nahid Shahalimi, an Afghan female writer living in Germany, realized that she needed to hurry to record the stories of prominent Afghan women who soon would try to escape their country, or st ... Show More
38m 13s
Feb 2014
Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
With James Naughtie. Khaled Hosseini talks about his global bestselling novel, The Kite Runner with a group of invited readers. The book describes how the happiness of an afternoon's kite flying competition in late-1970s Kabul is broken when young Amir fails to help his best frie ... Show More
27m 44s
Oct 2022
Faleeha Hassan, "War and Me" (Amazon Crossing, 2022)
An intimate memoir about coming of age in a tight-knit working-class family during Iraq's seemingly endless series of wars.Faleeha Hassan became intimately acquainted with loss and fear while growing up in Najaf, Iraq. Now, in a deeply personal account of her life, she remembers ... Show More
44m 56s
Jun 2024
Literary It Girls, BookTok And The Complicated History of Men Watching Women Reading
This week we've partnered with the Fitzwilliam Museum to take on the internet's renewed interest in all things literary. Inspired by the museum's rehang, where one portion of the Interiors gallery depicts women reading throughout the years, Ione and Gina talk through the oxymoron ... Show More
28m 12s
May 2021
Syria’s decade of conflict: The battered champions of Aleppo
Syrian born reporter Lina Sinjab presents a special series from Assignment’s award winning archive on the ten years of civil war in her country. This week she introduces Tim Whewell’s programme from 2016 about what happened to a local football team in Aleppo province in the early ... Show More
27m 7s
Nov 2021
Andrew Farrand, "The Algerian Dream: Youth and the Quest for Dignity" (New Degree Press, 2021)
"Algeria is different." Africa's largest country is a place that few western academics have studied or been able to travel to. The modern nation, forged in the anticolonial struggle against French colonialism between 1957 and 1963, has been bolstered by the discovery of oil short ... Show More
59m 42s
Nov 2022
Tahmima Anam: A Golden Age
This month as World Book Club continues its year-long season celebrating the Exuberance of Youth it also celebrates the 20th anniversary of the programme.To mark this happy occasion World Book Club are guests of the London Literature Festival at the South Bank Centre on the River ... Show More
49m 26s
Jan 2017
In Plain Sight
In 1849, abolitionist and attorney Wendell Phillips wrote: "We should look in vain through the most trying times of our revolutionary history for an incident of courage and noble daring to equal that of the escape of William and Ellen Craft; and future historians and poets would ... Show More
33m 7s