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Women's Prize for Fiction Shortlist, The Shires, Poet Sean O'Brien

The Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist, country band The Shires play live in studio plus a look at poet Sean O'Brien's new collection, Europa.

The shortlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2018 has been announced today, critics Alex Clark and Toby Lichtig comment on the six novels that made it through from the longlist of 16.

Country band The Shires perform live and discuss their new album, Accidentally on Purpose, working with Ed Sheeran and why country music is having a resurgence in popularity in the UK.

Sean O'Brien is a man of letters, writing essays, plays and novels; as well as his celebrated poetry. He talks about and reads from Europa, his latest collection - and his ninth. The tenet is that Europe is not a place we can choose to leave and the poems explore how our culture, language, history and identity are inextricably entwined with mainland Europe.

Presenter : Samira Ahmed
Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Available now

30 minutes

Chapters

  • Women's Prize for Fiction

    Duration: 09:16

  • The Shires

    Duration: 08:33

  • Sean O'Brien

    Duration: 08:31

The Shires

The Shires

The Shires' new album, Accidentally on Purpose, is out now.

Their UK tours starts rom Guildford on聽12 May 2018, and ends in Manchester on 06 June 2018, calling at聽 Bournemouth, Cardiff, Bristol, London, Folkestone, Sheffield, Ipswich, Cambridge, Oxford, Perth, Glasgow, Gateshead, Carlisle, York, Birmingham, Stoke, Liverpool and Llandudno in between.

Images: Main image above and image to the left : The Shires (Crissie Rhodes and Ben Earle)

The Women's Prize for Fiction

The Women's Prize for Fiction

The books shortlisted or the Women's Prize or Fiction 2018 are:

Elif Batuman, The Idiot
Imogen Hermes Gowar, The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock
Jessie Greengrass, Sight
Meena Kandasamy, When I Hit You: Or, A Portrait of the Writer as a Young Wife
Kamila Shamsie, 成人快手 Fire
Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing

The Prize is awarded on 06 June 2018.

Image: The books shortlisted or the 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction

Sean O'Brien

Sean O'Brien

collection of poetry, Europa, is out now.

Image: Sean O'Brien

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Samira Ahmed
Interviewed Guest Alex Clark
Interviewed Guest Toby Lichtig
Interviewed Guest The Shires
Interviewed Guest Sean O'Brien
Performer The Shires
Performer Sean O'Brien
Producer Dymphna Flynn

Broadcast

  • Mon 23 Apr 2018 19:15

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