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Outlook

Factual: Life Stories

True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives

True stories of ordinary people and the extraordinary events that have shaped their lives.

Outlook: Ghouls; Country Music; Surveillance

Ghouls, Laura Poitras and Doug Seers

06/11/2014

Ghouls; Country Music; Surveillance

BBC World Service - Outlook, Ghouls; Country Music; Surveillance

Estonian chorals; Ghost story; H is for Hawk; Citizen Four; Tomas Gonzales; Country music

Composer, Margo Kolar; Latin American ghost stories; Helen MacDonald; Laura Poitras on Citizen Four; Colombian novelist, Tomas Gonzales; Doug Seegers sings country

Margo Kolar, a former Estonian go-kart racer on becoming a conductor and composer of film scores, funky electronic tracks and church choral music.

BBC reporter Yolanda Valery talks about how ghost stories have inspired music and literature for centuries in Latin America.

Helen Macdonald, a British writer and academic explains why she has always been fascinated by falconry and how she used the most challenging of hawks, the goshawk, as a way of dealing with her grief at the sudden death of her father. Her book, H Is For Hawk has won the Samuel Johnson prize, the UK's most prestigious non-fiction award.

American documentary film maker, Laura Poitras on her latest film, "Citizen Four," a portrait of Edward Snowden, the computer systems designer who last year controversially leaked thousands of classified documents on global surveillance programmes to the media. The film concentrates on the eight days Laura spent in a Hong Kong hotel bedroom, with Edward Snowden himself and two journalists from the British Guardian newspaper, as they released this information to the world. 

Colombian novelist Tomas Gonzales on writing a novel based on how his older brother was murdered.  That book, called "In the Beginning Was the Sea," laid the foundations of his award winning literary career. It has just been published in English for the first time.  

Country singer Doug Seegers lived rough on the streets of Nashville, America, before being spotted busking by a Swedish music star and TV presenter called Jill Johnson.  Overnight, Doug became a sensation in Sweden. Doug is now trying to bring his Swedish fame back to the States. 

Images: Day of the Dead. Credit: Getty; Documentary film-maker Laura Poitras. Doug Seegers. Credit: Erin McDermott.

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