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Radio 3’s flagship arts programme until 2013. Over 350 editions available in the archive.

Radio 3’s flagship arts programme until 2013. Search the extensive archive for interviews, debates and reviews. Go to Free Thinking for the new home of arts and ideas on Radio 3.

Night Waves: Finnegans Wake in Chinese, Sara Wheeler, Muslim Comedy, Apocalypses

Finnegans Wake in Chinese, Sara Wheeler, Muslim Comedy, Apocalypses

27/02/2013

BBC Radio 3 - Night Waves, Finnegans Wake in Chinese, Sara Wheeler, Muslim Comedy, Apocalypses

Finnegans Wake in Chinese, Sara Wheeler, Muslim Comedy and Apocalypses.

Samira Ahmed discusses the Chinese translation of Finnegans Wake, women of the American frontier, Muslim comedy post 9/11, and how to deal with the end of the world.

Samira Ahmed examines why James Joyce's experimental and 'difficult' work Finnegans Wake has been a surprise hit in China. The critic and translator of Chinese fiction Julia Lovell discusses how the country's cultural climate is ready for such a phenomenon.

And Samira will be joined in the studio by the travel writer Sara Wheeler to talk about her new book, 'O my America!: Second Acts in the New World'. The book tells the story of six remarkable women who fled life in England in the nineteenth century to reinvent themselves in the United States. From Fanny Trollope, mother of Anthony, to the actress Fanny Kemble and campaigning writer Harriet Martineau their lives unfold against the backdrop of a period of history when America was defining both its borders and identity.

From the Book of Revelation to the most up-to-the-minute physics, via nuclear war and environmental catastrophe, we humans seem obsessed with accounts of the end of the world. But what have people done with the idea throughout history? Why are some attracted to it today? And are there in fact important moral lessons we can learn by thinking about the end of all things? Samira is joined by historian Justin Champion, sociologist Eileen Barker and theologian Martin Palmer.

And we look at an unlikely cultural movement which has flourished in post 9/11 America - Muslim comedy.


Produced by Luke Mulhall.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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