Five internationally acclaimed authors write letters to consider the consequences of the events of September 11th, 2001 for Britain, America and the world. Today's 9/11 Letter is by the Irish-Turkish writer Joseph O'Neill, who lives in Manhattan and whose award-winning novel, "Netherland", has been described as the "angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we've yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell".

Rather than creating a character writing to an imagined recipient, as the other authors of The 9/11 Letters have, O'Neill remains steadfastly himself, and addresses his letter directly to Radio 4 listeners. He reflects on the way that, because of the mass coverage of the attack on the World Trade Centre, the distance between those who were there as eye witnesses and the rest of us collapsed with the Twin Towers. We were all 'there'. And so America's response to the attacks had profound implications for us all.

Producer: Beaty Rubens

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2011. Show less