Arts & Ideas Folgen

Kofi Annan, Nobel Peace Prize winner and former UN Secretary General, is Philip Dodd’s guest in this edition of Night Waves. It’s a wide-ranging and personal conversation which touches on Bosnia, Rwanda, Iraq and Syria, and also on the debt Kofi Annan owes to his father. He offers a sharp analysis of the challenges facing the UN in the future and of the frustrations and rewards of being Secretary General; as well, of course, as some of the sadness that comes with the job.

Matthew Sweet chairs an "International Review" edition of the programme, with critics from around the world coming together to discuss the latest global cultural events and arts issues. Matthew is joined by the Chinese novelist, Xiaolu Guo, the Scots Ghanaian novelist and architect Lesley Lokko and the Lebanese architect and commentator on Middle East affairs, Karl Sharro and the Iranian journalist Fari Bradley. They discuss the international legacy of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road; whether curves should be banned from contemporary architecture and whether James Bond should be allowed to carry on for another fifty years.

Novelist and film director Paul Auster joins Anne McElvoy to discuss his new memoir, ‘Winter Solitude’. As the people of Catalonia go to the polls later this month, New Generation Thinker Adriana Sinclair, Spanish MP and pro-Catalan Independence party member Alfred Bosch, and Joseph Farrell from Strathclyde University discuss the urge towards independence. Jon Adams reviews Ruby Sparks, the new film written by and starring Zoe Kazan. And Anne talks to ceramic artist and writer Edmund de Waal about his new exhibition, A Thousand Hours.