Episodes
| Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | The Sacrifice | 20130308 | Three new short stories, specially commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to celebrate Derry~Londonderry's status as UK City of Culture, from some of the city's leading literary figures. Seamus Deane, Jennifer Johnston and Brian McGilloway each bring us a new short story, recorded in front of an audience in the city's Verbal Arts Centre. The Sacrifice' by Brian McGilloway Grianan of Aileach is a prehistoric ring fort sitting atop Grianan hill, barely ten miles from the centre of Derry~Londonderry, yet in a different jurisdiction, a few miles over the border in the Irish Republic. So when a dead body is discovered there, bruised and half-naked, DS Lucy Black is summoned over the border to investigate how it ended up in the middle of nowhere and why. Writer Brian McGilloway is author of the critically acclaimed Inspector Benedict Devlin series. He was born in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1974. After studying English at Queen's University, Belfast, he took up a teaching position in St Columb's College in Derry, where he is currently Head of English. His first novel, Borderlands, published by Macmillan New Writing, was shortlisted for the CWA New Blood Dagger 2007 and was hailed by The Times as 'one of (2007's) most impressive debuts.' Brian's fifth novel, Little Girl Lost, which introduced a new series featuring DS Lucy Black, won the University of Ulster's McCrea Literary Award in 2011. 2012 saw the paperback release of Little Girl Lost and the launch of the new Inspector Devlin mystery, The Nameless Dead. 'The Sacrifice' Read by Laura Pyper Produced by Michael Shannon. A dead body is found in a prehistoric ring fort. But how did it end up there, and why? Three short stories written to celebrate Derry-Londonderry's status as UK City of Culture |
| 02 | Are You Going to Knock? | 20130315 | Three new short stories, specially commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to celebrate Derry~Londonderry's status as UK City of Culture, from some of the city's leading literary figures. Seamus Deane, Jennifer Johnston and Brian McGilloway each bring us a new short story, recorded in front of an audience in the city's Verbal Arts Centre.
Writer.
Although born in Dublin, Jennifer Johnston has been living in Derry for several years. Jennifer Johnston's first published novel was The Captains and the Kings (1972). Since then, she has published many more novels, including Shadows on our Skin (1977), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction, and The Old Jest (1979), set in the War of Independence and winner of the 1979 Whitbread Novel Award.
Are you Going to Knock?
On a bus journey, one woman's travelling rituals are upset by an unexpected companion. Three short stories written to celebrate Derry-Londonderry's status as UK City of Culture |
| 03 | Peace Reigns Supreme | 20130322 | Three new short stories, specially commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to celebrate Derry~Londonderry's status as UK City of Culture, from some of the city's leading literary figures. Seamus Deane, Jennifer Johnston and Brian McGilloway each bring us a new short story, recorded in front of an audience in the city's Verbal Arts Centre.
'Peace reigns supreme' by Seamus Deane.
Writer
Seamus Deane is a Derry born poet, novelist, and critic. A founding director of the Field Day Theatre Company and member of the Royal Irish Academy, Deane's first novel, Reading in the Dark (published in 1996) won the 1996 Guardian Fiction Prize and the 1996 South Bank Show Annual Award for Literature, is a New York Times Notable Book, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize and the Irish Literature Prize in 1997, besides being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1996 and since translated into over 20 languages.
'Peace reigns supreme'
A tale of friendship and factions set against evolving attitudes to violence and peace. Three short stories written to celebrate Derry-Londonderry's status as UK City of Culture |