logo
episode-header-image
Apr 2023
43m 30s

Donna Leon

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode

The internationally bestselling crime writer Donna Leon talks to John Wilson about her career. Although American born, Donna is most associated with Venice, the city in which her Italian police detective protagonist, the mild-mannered family man Guido Brunetti, lives and works. She has so far written 32 novels, has sold nearly eight million copies in English, and been translated into 35 languages.

Donna Leon tells John Wilson about her love for Italy and particularly Venice, which until very recently was her home. She recalls her experiences teaching English in Saudi Arabia, and how she began her bestselling Brunetti series after a night at the opera.

Producer: Edwina Pitman

Up next
Oct 9
Jonathan Anderson
Jonathan Anderson was appointed as creative director of the French fashion house Dior in March 2025, becoming one of the world’s most influential designers. As creative director of the luxury label Loewe for 11 years from 2013, he led a rebranding of the Spanish company, and was ... Show More
43m 19s
Oct 2
Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay is one of the best known and most popular Scottish literary figures. A poet and novelist, she served as Makar - the name for Scotland’s poet laureate - for five years from 2016. Since her debut poetry collection The Adoption Papers in 1991, she has published 20 works o ... Show More
43m 31s
Sep 25
Kerry James Marshall
American artist Kerry James Marshall is one of the world’s most important living painters. Marshall has been making his large-scale, vividly colourful evocations of African-American life for over 40 years. His figurative paintings are rich with symbolism, metaphor and visual refe ... Show More
43m 10s
Recommended Episodes
Jan 2022
Deborah Levy, writer
Deborah Levy is a writer whose novels Swimming Home and Hot Milk were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Last year she published the final instalment of her ‘living autobiography’ trilogy of memoirs, and her earlier work includes plays for the RSC as well as short story colle ... Show More
37m 46s
Sep 2023
Lisa Jewell
This week, Georgina Godwin meets bestselling British novelist Lisa Jewell. The Londoner started out working in the pattern room at fashion chain Warehouse but, after taking creative-writing classes, she realised that she wanted to be an author. It was a bet with a friend while on ... Show More
27m 4s
Nov 2023
Sandra Newman
Joining Georgina Godwin in today’s episode is American author Sandra Newman, whose sixth novel, ‘Julia’, offers a bold feminist reinterpretation of George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’. The book expands upon the protagonist Winston Smith’s narrative to unveil and explore the ex ... Show More
29m 8s
Aug 2023
Antoine Laurain
The French novelist, screenwriter, journalist and director Antoine Laurain joins Georgina Godwin at Monocle’s London studios to discuss his tenth novel, ‘An Astronomer in Love’. He takes inspiration from the true story of Louis XV’s astronomer and combines it with a beautiful, mo ... Show More
20m 28s
Jan 2022
Colette
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the outstanding French writers of the twentieth century. The novels of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873 - 1954) always had women at their centre, from youth to mid-life to old age, and they were phenomenally popular, at first for their freshn ... Show More
51m 27s
Jan 2022
Colette
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the outstanding French writers of the twentieth century. The novels of Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (1873 - 1954) always had women at their centre, from youth to mid-life to old age, and they were phenomenally popular, at first for their freshn ... Show More
51m 27s
Oct 2020
#103 - QDM de Poche - Le livre “Le Coût de la vie” de Deborah Levy
En cette rentrée littéraire, la romancière Deborah Levy dévoile deux oeuvres autobiographiques, “Ce que je ne peux pas savoir” et “Le Coût de la vie”, publiées aux éditions du Sous-Sol. Née en Afrique du Sud en 1959, l’autrice y raconte son enfance, l’exclusion et le racisme subi ... Show More
19m 49s
Jun 2024
John Boyne, writer
The Irish writer John Boyne is best known for his 2006 novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which became a literary phenomenon, selling more than 11 million copies around the world. It was translated into 60 languages and adapted into a film, a play, a ballet and an opera. He ha ... Show More
51m 31s