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Diana Evans

Diana Evans on her novel Ordinary People, Amy Sackville discusses the court artist in literature and Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart. Presented by Mariella Frostrup.

Diana Evans, who won the inaugural Orange Award for New Writers, talks to Mariella Frostrup about her new novel Ordinary People set in South London in 2008 when two couples find themselves at a moment of reckoning. Ordinary People opens with Barack Obama's election victory and is framed by that event and the death of Michael Jackson in 2009.

As London's Southbank Centre prepares to stage a day-long live reading of Nigerian author Chinua Achebe's epoch-defining African novel Things Fall Apart, we'll be talking to the organisers about the joys and challenges of bringing the work to life.

Novelists Amy Sackville and Vanora Bennett who've both fictionalised famous court painters - in this Diego Velasquez and Hans Holbein - tell all about these characters' unique perspective on courtly life.

And travel writer and novelist Emily Barr shares the Book she'd Never Lend.

Presenter: Mariella Frostrup
Producer: Simon Richardson.

Available now

28 minutes

Last on

Thu 12 Apr 2018 15:30

Chapters

  • Diana Evans

    Duration: 08:20

  • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is adapted for the stage

    Duration: 06:51

  • Emily Barr on the book she'd never lend

    Duration: 04:15

  • The fictional life of court painters

    Duration: 07:15

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Mariella Frostrup
Interviewed Guest Diana Evans
Interviewed Guest Vanora Bennett
Interviewed Guest Amy Sackville
Interviewed Guest Tony Parsons
Producer Simon Richardson

Broadcasts

  • Sun 8 Apr 2018 16:00
  • Thu 12 Apr 2018 15:30

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