World Book Club Folgen

Acclaimed Maori writer Witi Ihimaera talks to Harriett Gilbert and a group of readers at the Cheltenham Literary Festival about his magical, lore-laden novel, The Whale Rider. It tells the haunting story of a spirited Maori girl, her tribe and their mysteriously intertwined destinies. Kahu, a 12-year-old girl struggles to become the chief of her tribe but her grandfather Koro, whose attention she craves, believes that this is a role reserved for males only. Kahu will not be ignored and in her quest she finds a unique ally: the whale rider himself, from whom she has inherited the ability to communicate with whales. Once this sacred gift is revealed, will Kahu be able to assume her rightful position and lead her tribe to a bold new future?(Image: Witi Ihimaera 2015) (Credit: XAVIER LEOTY/AFP/Getty Images)

Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed British writer Penelope Lively about her Booker Prize winning novel Moon Tiger. A haunting tale of loss, loneliness and secret desires Moon Tiger is the kaleidoscopic story of maverick historian Claudia Hampton.Telling nurses on her death bed that she will write a "history of the world and in the process my own," she charts her intensely-lived life from her childhood in England after World War I to the war-torn desert plains of Egypt, 30 years later – and beyond. Egocentric and condescending as well as vulnerable and gutsy, Claudia is a complex heroine for our times who lingers in the mind long after you put the book down.(Image: Penelope Lively. Copyright: Penguin)

Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed Israeli writer David Grossman about his award-winning novel, To the End of the Land. Winner of - amongst others - the Wingate Jewish Book Prize for 2012, To the End of the Land is a novel of extraordinary power and lyrical intensity about the power of love and the devastating cost of war. Instead of celebrating her son Ofer’s discharge from the Israeli Army, Ora is appalled when he reenlists and is sent back to the front for a major offensive. Unable to bear the thought of sitting alone waiting for the ‘notifiers’ to bring her bad news, she sets off on a hike across Israel with Ofer’s biological father who has never met his son and has has lived in near-seclusion since being tortured as a prisoner in the Yom Kippur war three decades before.Photo credit: Reuters