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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Book of the Week

Audiobooks

Factual

Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

BBC Radio 4 Extra

BBC Radio 4 LW

Francesca Dymond

Kirsteen Cameron

Laurence Wareing

Helena Attlee

Book of the Week: The Land Where Lemons Grow: Episode 2

Drama

The Land Where Lemons Grow

Episode 2

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, The Land Where Lemons Grow, Episode 2

Citrus and Sicily: how the Mafia had its origins in the lemon groves of the Conca d'Oro.

Sicily: lemons arrived there with the Arabs in the ninth century and gave rise to the Mafia. Read by Francesca Dymond.

Sicily's rich tradition of citrus cultivation.
 
Citrus first arrived on the island in the ninth century, brought by the Arabs whose sophisticated irrigation systems made it viable there as a crop. The island is still renowned for the quality of its fruit, particularly the arancia rossa, the blood orange, hailed as the 'prince among oranges', which is grown in the shadow of Mount Etna.
 
Mixing travel writing, history and horticulture, author Helena Attlee takes a celebratory journey through Italy, exploring the special place that citrus holds in the Italian imagination.
 

Read by Francesca Dymond
 
Written by Helena Attlee
 
Abridged by Laurence Wareing
 
Produced by Kirsteen Cameron

First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2014.

Book of the Week: The Land Where Lemons Grow

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Helena Attlee explores why citrus holds a special place in the Italian imagination

Mixing travel writing, history and horticulture, Helena Attlee takes a celebratory journey through Italy, exploring why citrus holds a special place in the Italian imagination

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