A Book Club like no other, as our favourite literary vaudevillians read about monsters and Europe and things that go bump in the mind. Crace writes the satirical Digested Reads for the Guardian. Sutherland is Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of English at UCL and the go-to senior Eng-Lit Super-Don.
Join the New York Times duo as they conspire again on two slyly funny tales about some creative shapes. Visually stunning and full of wry humour, these thoughtful offerings about different shapes from two of today's most irreverent picture-book creators emphasize the importance of keeping your eyes and your mind open to wonder, where others see only rubble and rocks.
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 writer and doctor considers the transformations in mind and body that continue across the arc of human life. Some of these changes we have little choice about. We can’t avoid puberty, the menopause or our hair turning grey. Others may be welcome milestones along our path – a much-wanted pregnancy, a cancer cured or a long-awaited transition to another gender. We may find ourselves turning down dark paths, towards the cruel distortions of anorexia, or the shifting sands of memory loss. New technologies and medicine have unprecedented power to alter our lives, but that power has limitations.
Journalist and author Oliver Bullough brings his popular Kleptoscope series to Hay to discuss why and how so much money is stolen from the world’s poorest countries, and what we can do about it. Nigerian novelist Onuzu talks about how she put corruption at the heart of her brilliant second novel Welcome to Lagos; former US intelligence agent and foreign affairs expert Matthew T. Page is the author of Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know – a guide to the oil-rich African state, plagued by corruption and Boko Haram, home to many of the world’s greatest writers.
Directed by Neasa Ní Chianáín. Duration 80 minutes.
A riveting and haunting documentary about Neal McGregor, a 44-year-old English artist who died in the stone shed where he lived on the small Donegal island of Inisbofin. He left behind only volumes of secret diaries and animal carvings. The Irish-speaking islanders knew little of Neal during the eight years he lived there. This is a documentary about memory and perception, a journey to capture an unusual portrait of a man, living on the edge, both physically and mentally, and the insular Irish-speaking island community he lived among. Followed by a Q&A with director Neasa Ní Chianáin.
Dermot McMonagle is a Cavan-based historian and the author of 29 Main Street: Living With Partition, an account of the rise of Sinn Fein from 1917.
Man Booker Prize-winning author Alan Hollinghurst’s masterly novel evokes the intimate relationships of a group of friends bound together by art, literature and love across three generations. It explores the social and sexual revolutions of the most pivotal years of the past century, whose life-changing consequences are still being played out to this day. Richly observed, disarmingly witty and emotionally charged, The Sparsholt Affair is an unmissable achievement from one of our finest writers.
A conversation between the winners of the 2016 and 2017 Baillie Gifford Prizes for non-fiction. France tells Sands the riveting, powerful and profoundly moving story of the AIDS epidemic and the grass-roots movement of activists, many of them facing their own life-or-death struggles, who grabbed the reins of scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease. Around the globe, the 15.8 million people taking anti-AIDS drugs today are alive thanks to their efforts.
A conversation and reading with three of the most extraordinary young talents in international fiction. Dehnel’s Lala is a lyrical and moving Polish family saga set against the turbulent backdrop of 20th century Europe. Lala is an independent woman who has survived some of the most turbulent events of her times. As she senses the first signs of dementia, she battles to keep her memories alive through her stories, telling her grandson tales of a life filled with love, betrayal and extraordinary acts of courage. Kitson's debut Sal is a disturbing, uplifting story of survival, of the kindness of strangers, and the irrepressible power of sisterly love; a love that can lead us to do extraordinary and unimaginable things. Set in Singapore, and spanning 50 years, Teo’s Ponti is a sweeping story of three women and the guilt that ties them to each other. Teo was the winner of the inaugural Deborah Rogers Foundation award in 2016. Chaired by Georgina Godwin.
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.
The great England cricket captain, in later life a psychoanalyst, talks about the game, the players and the gentlemen. He is the author of The Art of Captaincy and On Form.
