The Wife of Bath
Chaucer's widow and clothmaker is one of three characters given a longer confessional voice than other pilgrims in his Canterbury Tales and she uses her narrative to ask who has had the advantage in s...
17 Jan 202344min
Anna Kavan
Asylum and psychiatric institutions, obsession and heroin, and imagining a new self are explored in the writing of Anna Kavan (1901-1968). With the republication of her novel Ice, her reputation is no...
11 Jan 202344min
Phillis Wheatley
In her short life, the 18th century African American woman, Phillis Wheatley was a slave, a prodigy, a poet and a celebrity. As a child, she was kidnapped from her home in West Africa and transported...
11 Jan 202344min
Katherine Mansfield & Mavis Gallant
Insecurity, sexuality and bliss are amongst the topics explored in the short stories of Katherine Mansfield (14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923). Having left a New Zealand suburb she came to England age...
6 Jan 202344min
Amílcar Cabral
The anti-colonial leader killed 50 years ago (20th January) was a poet, influenced by Marxism and led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and the Cape Verde Islands. António Tomás, José Lingna N...
6 Jan 202344min
Wilkie Collins & disability
A blind woman who temporarily regains her sight is the heroine of Wilkie Collins’ 1872 novel Poor Miss Finch. Matthew Sweet is joined by Clare Walker Gore, Tom Shakespeare and Tanvir Bush to discuss h...
5 Jan 202344min
Landladies
Louise Jameson joins Matthew Sweet to recall the women who ran the digs she stayed in as a touring actor and the landladies that she's played (including a homicidal one!). Historian Gillian Williamson...
16 Des 202244min
Bestiaries and Beyond
Are animals a human invention? What is a lama like? Do plants have sex? Was Amelia Earhart eaten by crabs? These are just some of the questions posed by Shahidha Bari and addressed by her guests Kathe...
14 Des 202244min
