On the morning of 26 April 1986 Europe witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine. In the end, less than five per cent of the reactor’s fuel escaped, but that was enough to contaminate over half of Europe with radioactive fallout. Plokhy’s Baillie Gifford Prize-winning account recreates these events in all of their drama, telling the stories of the fire-fighters, scientists, engineers, workers, soldiers and policemen who found themselves caught in a nuclear Armageddon and succeeded in doing the seemingly impossible: extinguishing the nuclear inferno and putting the reactor to sleep. While it is clear that the immediate cause of the accident was a turbine test gone wrong, Plokhy shows how the deeper roots of Chernobyl lay in the nature of the Soviet political system and the flaws of its nuclear industry. Plokhy is Professor of History at Harvard University and a leading authority on Eastern Europe. Chaired by Nik Gowing.

UK Waterstones Children’s Laureate Lauren Child and Laureate na nÓg Sarah Crossan will share the stage to discuss the power of words, the importance of illustration and their mutual conviction that every child should have access to literature and to creativity. Chaired by Jonathan Douglas, Director, National Literacy Trust.

Why did landscape become a subject for art in the 18th century and not before? Where might we look for clues to an earlier ‘sense of place’? The Professor of English, author of Weatherland and Romantic Moderns, examines the history of English landscape painting and local writing from the particular perspective of going back to her childhood home in Sussex. She talks with Tim Dee, editor of a timely collection of the best British nature writing newly commissioned by one of the great authorities on the subject - Ground Work. The book explores a sense of place, and our obligations of custodianship in this land.

Kate Reddy is counting down the days until she is 50, but not in a good way. Fifty, in Kate’s mind, equals invisibility. And with hormones that have her in shackles, teenage children who need her but won’t talk to her and ailing parents who aren’t coping, Kate is in the middle of a sandwich that she isn’t even allowed to eat because of the calories. The long-awaited sequel to the bestselling comedy I Don’t Know How She Does It is just as funny and wise, and unputdownable.

When one little boy discovers a message from Father Christmas asking for help to save his home from the oil drillers, he sets off on a big adventure into the frozen North. Listen to the story and find out what it’s like in the Arctic, who lives there and why it matters if the ice melts, with ex Greenpeace campaigner and author Catherine Barr.

Aclamada por público y crítica, Sofi Oksanen se ha convertido en una de las escritoras contemporáneas más exitosas de Finlandia. Entre sus libros destacan Purga, del que vendió más de un millón de ejemplares en 41 países y, más recientemente, Cuando las palomas cayeron del cielo, novela ambientada en Estonia durante el período anterior y posterior a la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En 2013 Sofi Oksanen fue galardonada con el Premio Nórdico de la Academia Sueca al conjunto de su obra.

Evento patrocinado por ARCADIA

A hundred years ago, a girl was born in the northern Ethiopian city of Gondar. Before she was ten years old, Yetemegnu was married to a man two decades her senior, an ambitious poet-priest. Over the next century her world changed beyond recognition. She witnessed fascist invasion and occupation, Allied bombardment and exile from her city, the ascent and fall of Emperor Haile Selassie, revolution and civil war. She endured all these things alongside parenthood, widowhood and the death of children. The Wife’s Tale is an intimate memoir, both of a life and of a country. Edemariam retells her grandmother’s stories in a masterpiece that is being compared to Jung Chang’s Wild Swans.

Climate change and poaching are not the only culprits behind so many animals facing extinction. The campaigning CEO of Compassion in World Farming argues that the impact of consumer demand for cheap meat is equally devastating and it is vital that we confront this problem if we are to stand a chance of reducing its effect on the world around us. He talks to Matt Stadlen.

The first of four recitals broadcast from Hay this week. 
Felix Mendelssohn’s Auf Flugeln des Gesanges Op.34 No.2; Fanny Hensel Warum sind den die Rosen so blass, Op.1 No.3; Felix MendelssohnLieder ohne Worte Op.30 No.3; Fanny Hensel Die Mainacht Op.9 No.6, Lieder ohne Worte Op.8 No.3; Felix Mendelssohn Suleika 1 Op.57 No.3; Robert Schumann Lied der Suleika Op.25 No.9; Clara Schumann Liebst du um Schőnheit Op.12 No.2; Robert Schumann Widmung Op.25 No.1; Johanna Müller-Hermann Lieder Op.2; Richard Strauss Schlagende Herzen Op.29 No.2, Das Rosenband Op.36 No.1, Ständchen Op.17 No.2, Morgen Op.27 No.4

The sequencing of the human genome has revolutionised how scientists search for the genetic causes of human diseases. Human geneticist Professor Soranzo of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute will describe how the field has evolved in the last fifteen years, discussing how new genetic evidence is used to better understand the interplay between our DNA (‘nature’) and the environment (‘nurture’).

A conversation with one of the world’s great novelists and men of letters, author of Not Art, Celestial Harmonies and Revised Edition. Introduced by Csilla Csorba, Director of thePetofi Museum of Literature.

In collaboration with Magveto Publishing House