Great Lives Folgen

Diana Athill joins Matthew Parris to explore the life of the Spanish painter, Francisco de Goya, who has been called the last old masters and the first of the moderns.The literary editor and memoirist praises Goya for bearing witness truthfully to the horrors of war, for the tenderness of his observations as a painter, his unorthodox style and his desire to keep learning, even in old age.We know more about Goya thanks to his letters, which have been edited by Dr Sarah Symmons, who also contributes to this programme. They reveal a passionate and playful man, who was fascinated by people and every incarnation of human life and behaviour - including royalty, prostitutes and the elderly. He also wrote openly about professional humiliation and shared intimate details about his private life.Diana Athill helped establish the publishing company Andre Deutsch, worked with some of the 20th century's greatest writers in her long career, and her six volumes of memoirs include Somewhere Towards the End, an examination of what it means to be old.Reader Javier Marzan.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

John Ford had a monumental Hollywood career - over 140 films, Oscars he never turned up to receive, and a blunt way of approaching the business that made him enemies as well as friends. He stood up once at a meeting and said simply, "My name's John Ford, I make westerns." Critic Ed Buscombe also joins Matthew Parris and we hear archive of the tough-talking director John Ford. From 2012.Producer: Miles Warde.

Edward Said was a man, who, in his own words, lived two quite separate lives. First there was the scholar and literary critic of Columbia University, and then there was the fierce critic of American and Israeli policies in the Middle East. In the United States he was an academic superstar, but his views - on Palestine in particular - made him an intensely divisive figure. He died of leukaemia in 2003.In Great Lives, Alexei Sayle explains to Matthew Parris why Edward Said, a man he met twice and described as "very noble and fiercely intelligent", inspired him. Edward Said once described the Palestinians as 'the victims of the victims'. This eloquence, on a subject that in America was taboo, still impresses Alexei Sayle today. Producer: Toby Field.