Baroness Haleh Afshar

Baroness Haleh Afshar

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Baroness Haleh Afshar. An expert in Middle Eastern Affairs, she's a professor of politics and women's studies and Islamic law as well as being a cross-bench peer. She grew up in Iran and France living a life of huge privilege but, inspired by reading Jane Eyre, she decided she needed to learn to stand on her own two feet. She came to Britain as a boarding school pupil when she was 14 and has made her home here.

She has been an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime and, coming from a long line of independent-minded women, that's little surprise. Her mother campaigned for women to have the vote while her grandmother refused to wear the veil. Though in her grandmother's case, that was because she thought she was too pretty to be covered up.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Record: Prelude to Bach's Cello Suite No.1 Book: Collected poems by Hafiz Alternate to Bible: Koran Luxury: A rose bush.

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Episoder(247)

Sandie Shaw

Sandie Shaw

Kirsty Young's castaway is the singer Sandie Shaw. With her melodic, velvety voice, bare feet and Sassoon bob she was the epitome of everything that was swinging about the '60s. She was just 17 when s...

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Nick Park

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Kirsty Young's castaway is the Oscar-winning animator Nick Park.His most famous creations are Wallace and Gromit: Gromit the silent but wise dog; Wallace, his well meaning owner with notably less brai...

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Sir Torquil Norman

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Kirsty Young's castaway week is the aviator, inventor and arts patron, Sir Torquil Norman. He comes from a family where derring-do is in the DNA - his grandfather was a pioneering airman, his grandmot...

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Frances Wood

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Kirsty Young's castaway is the writer and historian Frances Wood. As head of the Chinese collection at the British Library she is the gatekeeper to some of the rarest printed texts in the world. Her l...

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Robert Harris

Robert Harris

Kirsty Young's castaway is the best-selling writer Robert Harris. He was, apparently, a political junkie from a young age; he was just six when he wrote the essay: 'Why me and my dad don't like Sir Al...

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Alice Cooper

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Kirsty Young's castaway is the rock musician Alice Cooper.As a teenager he says it was British music that he tuned in to - listening to The Beatles, The Yardbirds and The Who. He realised that while ...

21 Nov 201036min

Anna Del Conte

Anna Del Conte

Kirsty Young's castaway is the cookery writer Anna Del Conte. Born to a wealthy Milanese family, she arrived in Britain in 1949 where her Italian ingenuity with food was sorely needed in a nation stil...

19 Nov 201036min

Ian McMillan

Ian McMillan

Kirsty Young's castaway is the poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan. Thirty years ago he was working in a factory gluing together tennis ball halves. Then he got a grant, chucked in his job and devoted h...

7 Nov 201037min

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