World Book Club Folgen

In one of the last broadcast interviews, the acclaimed Irish author Edna O’Brien, who died aged 93 in July 2024, is in conversation with Kim Chakanetsa. In this bonus episode, shediscusses her final novel, Girl – which tells the story of a young girl in Nigeria who is captured by the Islamist group Boko Haram – the effects of lockdown and her love of writing and literature from around the world… (Recorded in 2020)

Another chance to hear Harriett Gilbert talking to bestselling American writer Paul Auster, who died earlier this year on 30 April 2024. Paul Auster joined Harriett in 2012, with a literary festival audience and readers from around the world, to discuss his acclaimed work The New York Trilogy. In three brilliant variations on the classic detective story, Auster makes the well-traversed terrain of New York City his own. Each interconnected tale exploits the elements of standard detective fiction to achieve an entirely new genre that was ground-breaking when it was published four decades ago.In each story the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes a startling investigation of identity and what it means to be human.Hear what readers made of Paul and his novel and what happened when another Paul Auster stood up to introduce himself to the Paul Auster on the stage – a very New York Trilogy occurrence.Presenter: Harriett Gilbert Producer: Allegra McIlroy(Photo: Paul Auster interview with Stephen Sackur in New York, 2021)

Following the death of the Irish author Edna O’Brien in July 2024, another chance to hear a 2008 World Book Club episode in which she talked to Harriett Gilbert and an audience of readers about her renowned debut novel The Country Girls. Banned in her homeland on publication, it has become one of O’Brien’s most admired and renowned works.Producer: Oliver JonesImage: Edna O'Brien, pictured in 2009 at the Hay Festival (Credit: David Levenson/Getty Images)