Stories To Keep Space For On The Bookshelves

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Series

The Essay

Duration

15 minutes

Genre

Arts
Culture and the Media
Factual

Station

Radio 3

Duration

15 Minutes

Episodes

Title	First Broadcast	Comments
1000 Coils Of Fear	20230210	As she travels the world and prepares to become a mother, the narrator of Olivia Wenzel's novel reflects on her upbringing as a queer, Black woman in a white family, with her mother, a rebellious East German punk who was mostly absent, and her grandmother who was loyal to the socialist regime. Her father, an Angolan student, left shortly after she was born and her twin brother died when they were 17. For Queer History Month, New Generation Thinker Tom Smith looks at the ideas of queer family life explored in 1000 Serpentinen Angst, now available in an English translation by Dr Priscilla Layne as 1000 Coils of Fear. Producer: Ruth Watts Tom Smith reads Olivia Wenzel's novel, which was longlisted for 2020's German Book Prize. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
Iola Leroy	20230207	Poet, abolitionist, and activist for women's rights, Frances EW Harper was one of the first African American women to be published in the United States, producing 80 poems, various articles, sketches, serialised books and short stories and a novel printed when she was aged 67. New Generation Thinker Xine Yao looks at her career, focusing on this 1892 novel Iola Leroy. It tells the story of a Black mixed race woman who survives the Civil War, experiences romances and has to navigate the post-emancipation world and it explores ideas about science, education, evolving forms of anti-Black racism, and women's social responsibilities. Producer: Luke Mulhall Xine Yao reads the first novel by African American writer Frances EW Harper (1825-1911). Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
Tales From The Garbage Hills	20230208	Urbanisation, migration and folk language' are explored in the 1984 novel by Latife Tekin. The story is a carnivalesque fusion of contrasts like its title - where Berji' conjures images of an innocent shepherdess and Kristin' of a sex worker. There's blind old Güllü Baba, rumoured to cure the ills caused by a nearby factory's chemical wastewater. There's Fidan of Many Skills, rumoured to know all the arts of the bed'. There's the rumour of roads, jobs, and clean water coming to Flower Hill: they never materialise. In his foreword to Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills, John Berger crowns rumour' its ultimate storyteller. New Generation Thinker Sarah Jilani looks at the way the inhabitants of Flower Hill make sense of their disorienting transition from village life to shantytown in the story from one of Turkey's most influential female authors writing today. Producer: Torquil MacLeod Sarah Jilani reads Latife Tekin's magical realist novel about 1960s Istanbul shanty towns. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
The Heir Of Redclyffe	20230209	Soldiers fighting in the Crimean War lapped up this story and it also influenced the young William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who read it at Oxford. The Heir of Redclyffe, published in 1853, reflects the mid-Victorian trend for medievalism and resurgence of High Church Anglicanism, combining gothic melodrama with sharply observed social realism, sprightly dialogue and wry humour. Although Charlotte M Yonge came to be associated mainly with domestic realism, in her long career (1823-1901) she worked across a wide range of genres, writing biographies, histories, children's books, and novels from historical epics to long-running family sagas. In Yonge's bicentenary year, New Generation Thinker Clare Walker-Gore argues that now is the time to rediscover this brilliant and neglected woman writer. Producer: Torquil MacLeod Clare Walker-Gore revisits Charlotte M Yonge's best-selling novel from 1853. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
The Paradise Crater	20230206	Arrested by military intelligence, Philip Wylie (1902-1971) went on to become an adviser to the chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee for Atomic Energy. At least nine films have been made out of stories he published which ranged across topics including ecology, science fiction and the threat of nuclear holocaust. New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon reads his short story The Paradise Crater. Producer: Luke Mulhall Sarah Dillon tells us about the nuclear short story by atomic energy adviser Philip Wylie. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Episodes

Title	First Broadcast	Comments
1000 Coils Of Fear	20230210	As she travels the world and prepares to become a mother, the narrator of Olivia Wenzel's novel reflects on her upbringing as a queer, Black woman in a white family, with her mother, a rebellious East German punk who was mostly absent, and her grandmother who was loyal to the socialist regime. Her father, an Angolan student, left shortly after she was born and her twin brother died when they were 17. For Queer History Month, New Generation Thinker Tom Smith looks at the ideas of queer family life explored in 1000 Serpentinen Angst, now available in an English translation by Dr Priscilla Layne as 1000 Coils of Fear. Producer: Ruth Watts Tom Smith reads Olivia Wenzel's novel, which was longlisted for 2020's German Book Prize. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
Iola Leroy	20230207	Poet, abolitionist, and activist for women's rights, Frances EW Harper was one of the first African American women to be published in the United States, producing 80 poems, various articles, sketches, serialised books and short stories and a novel printed when she was aged 67. New Generation Thinker Xine Yao looks at her career, focusing on this 1892 novel Iola Leroy. It tells the story of a Black mixed race woman who survives the Civil War, experiences romances and has to navigate the post-emancipation world and it explores ideas about science, education, evolving forms of anti-Black racism, and women's social responsibilities. Producer: Luke Mulhall Xine Yao reads the first novel by African American writer Frances EW Harper (1825-1911). Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
Tales From The Garbage Hills	20230208	Urbanisation, migration and folk language' are explored in the 1984 novel by Latife Tekin. The story is a carnivalesque fusion of contrasts like its title - where Berji' conjures images of an innocent shepherdess and Kristin' of a sex worker. There's blind old Güllü Baba, rumoured to cure the ills caused by a nearby factory's chemical wastewater. There's Fidan of Many Skills, rumoured to know all the arts of the bed'. There's the rumour of roads, jobs, and clean water coming to Flower Hill: they never materialise. In his foreword to Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills, John Berger crowns rumour' its ultimate storyteller. New Generation Thinker Sarah Jilani looks at the way the inhabitants of Flower Hill make sense of their disorienting transition from village life to shantytown in the story from one of Turkey's most influential female authors writing today. Producer: Torquil MacLeod Sarah Jilani reads Latife Tekin's magical realist novel about 1960s Istanbul shanty towns. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
The Heir Of Redclyffe	20230209	Soldiers fighting in the Crimean War lapped up this story and it also influenced the young William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who read it at Oxford. The Heir of Redclyffe, published in 1853, reflects the mid-Victorian trend for medievalism and resurgence of High Church Anglicanism, combining gothic melodrama with sharply observed social realism, sprightly dialogue and wry humour. Although Charlotte M Yonge came to be associated mainly with domestic realism, in her long career (1823-1901) she worked across a wide range of genres, writing biographies, histories, children's books, and novels from historical epics to long-running family sagas. In Yonge's bicentenary year, New Generation Thinker Clare Walker-Gore argues that now is the time to rediscover this brilliant and neglected woman writer. Producer: Torquil MacLeod Clare Walker-Gore revisits Charlotte M Yonge's best-selling novel from 1853. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.
The Paradise Crater	20230206	Arrested by military intelligence, Philip Wylie (1902-1971) went on to become an adviser to the chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee for Atomic Energy. At least nine films have been made out of stories he published which ranged across topics including ecology, science fiction and the threat of nuclear holocaust. New Generation Thinker Sarah Dillon reads his short story The Paradise Crater. Producer: Luke Mulhall Sarah Dillon tells us about the nuclear short story by atomic energy adviser Philip Wylie. Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.