Kate Mosse
Historical novelist and playwright Kate Mosse talks to John Wilson about the most important cultural influences and experiences that have inspired her own creativity.
The author of the multi-million-selling Languedoc trilogy, set amidst religious wars in south-west France and beginning with the bestselling Labyrinth, Kate Mosse has written nine novels and short story collections, and four plays. She is also one of the co-founders of the Women鈥檚 Prize For Fiction.
Kate Mosse tells John Wilson about first visiting the Festival Theatre in her hometown of Chichester at the age of six and seeing the 19th-century French farce The Italian Straw Hat, an experience that opened her mind to the power of drama. She remembers being among the million and a half visitors to the blockbuster Tutankhamen exhibition at the British Museum in 1972, and explains how her interest in historical narratives can be traced back to the treasures of the boy king.
Kate Mosse also chooses two literary influences for This Cultural Life. Having read Emily Bronte鈥檚 Wuthering Heights as a teenager, she says the way that Bronte describes the Yorkshire moors as like a character in their own right influenced her own novels in which the Languedoc landscape plays a similar narrative role. Her last big cultural moment is the 1991 Booker Prize for Fiction when an all-male shortlist prompted Kate and other literary figures to create the Women鈥檚 Prize for Fiction as a way of shining the spotlight on novels written by women anywhere in the world.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
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Broadcasts
- Sat 20 Aug 2022 19:15成人快手 Radio 4
- Mon 22 Aug 2022 14:15成人快手 Radio 4
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This Cultural Life
In-depth conversations with some of the world's leading artists and creatives.