logo
episode-header-image
Sep 22
26m 32s

In the Studio: Poet Leonie Charlton on w...

Bbc World Service
About this episode

An edition of In The Studio on the subject that became the dominant story across the world in the summer of 2026. In December 2024, the Scottish poet Leonie Charlton’s house burned to the ground. From that moment, Leonie was obsessed with fire. She saw it everywhere, writing about and mulling over the acute experience of watching everything she and her family had ever owned go up in flames. In early summer this year, Leonie set off through the ruggedly wild and beautiful landscape of the West Coast of Scotland to write a new poem about fire for her forthcoming collection Deerlands. But, within days, the thousands of wildfires across the world began to take hold, reaching into Scotland too. This is a programme about a poet responding to a personal calamity just at the moment it becomes a global calamity. Presented by Antonia Quirke.

Up next
Sep 15
In the Studio: Jack in the Green
In the south of England, Hastings' traditional Jack in the Green takes place every early May Day weekend and sees a seven foot-tall conical tower of leaves - the Jack - being processed through the old fishing quarters of the town before being led up to a steep hill overlooking th ... Show More
26m 41s
Sep 8
In the Studio: The Bayeux Tapestry
The Bayeux Tapestry has English history stitched into its fabric, depicting the last time the country was invaded, by William the Conqueror in 1066. France has been its home since then. But now thanks to high-level negotiations involving President Emmanuel Macron and King Charles ... Show More
26m 29s
Sep 8
Steve Levine: Revisiting the Beach Boys
Steve Levine is a multi-award winning British record producer. He has produced albums for stars ranging from Deniece Williams to China Crisis; from Ziggy Marley to Quarterflash; as well as being producer of Culture Club’s first three multi-platinum selling albums from the 1980s. ... Show More
1h 7m
Recommended Episodes
Apr 2018
Chinese Characters
The history of China, as told through 20 lives. This time: The Female Emperor. 
16m 42s
May 2022
Fighting for Uyghur rights in China
<p>Max Pearson gets a first-hand account of how the minority Uyghur community in China staged some of the first protests against the all-powerful Communist Party in the 1980s. Plus, the young lawyer who won the landmark Roe v Wade abortion rights case in the US, the chemistry of ... Show More
49m 57s
May 2017
The Refugee
Award-winning novelist Kim Thúy has called Montreal home since making the harrowing journey from communist Vietnam by boat with her family in 1979. 
32m 45s
Apr 2023
#54 Yeonmi Park - Escaping the Horrors of North Korea & the Kim Dynasty
Yeonmi Park is an activist and author who fled to the United States after being a victim of sex trafficking. Park recounts her oppressive childhood in North Korea, starved and without electricity. She remembers how the lights of neighboring countries gave her hope for a better li ... Show More
2h 32m
Jul 2021
China's trailblazing foreign students
China has the largest number of overseas students in the world but when students first started venturing out of Communist China it was still a country feeling the aftereffects of the Cultural Revolution. Launched in 1966 by Communist leader Mao Zedong the Cultural Revolution plun ... Show More
13m 20s
Jun 2019
Tiananmen Square
<p>A student protester's perspective on the Tiananmen Square massacre, the first social network on the internet, the surprisingly controversial early years of Sesame Street, the overthrow of Emperor Bokassa in the CAR, and the death of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Neh ... Show More
50m 4s
Jan 2025
Karissa Chen Brings Us A Chinese Love Story
Our first book show of the year is a first-time novelist, Karissa Chen. Her new book Homecoming is a novel a portrait in longing, an epoch love story between two characters torn apart by political unrest at the time of the Communist Revolution in China. It’s ambitious, it’s beaut ... Show More
30m 33s
Oct 2022
The Sunday Read: ‘How Yiyun Li Became a Beacon for Readers in Mourning’
<p>Yiyun Li has garnered legions of fans with her unsparing prose, writing extensively about her own struggles with depression and suicidality.</p><p>Her latest novel, “The Book of Goose,” is no different, sharing the same quality that has made Ms. Li something of a beacon to tho ... Show More
32m 57s