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Open Book

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Programme looking at new fiction and non-fiction books

Programme looking at new fiction and non-fiction books, talking to authors and publishers and unearthing lost classics

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Mariella Frostrup

Edna O'Brien

Frank Barrett

Paul Farley

Garth Risk Hallberg

Open Book: Edna O'Brien on The Little Red Chairs

Edna O'Brien on Little Red Chairs

15/11/2015

Edna O'Brien on The Little Red Chairs

BBC Radio 4 - Open Book, Edna O'Brien on The Little Red Chairs

Edna O'Brien talks about her novel The Little Red Chairs. Presented by Mariella Frostrup.

Edna O'Brien talks to Mariella Frostrup about her novel The Little Red Chairs, and New York novelists talk about the appeal to writers of the city's recent past.

Irish novelist Edna O'Brien, now in her eighties, has just published The Little Red Chairs, an ambitious and disturbing novel which Philip Roth has decribed as 'her masterpiece'. It starts with the arrival of a war criminal in a small village on the west coast of Ireland, and moves to London and the Hague as it it considers the impact of his terrible crimes, and investigates the nature of evil. Edna O'Brien talks to Mariella about researching her novel, and why she believes fiction should tackle difficult and troubling themes. 

Also on the programme - a sense of place: Frank Barrett who has undertaken a literary pilgrimage around Britain and poet Paul Farley, former writer in residence at Dove Cottage, discuss the appeal of writers' homes and visiting the real life settings of our great novels. And Garth Risk Hallberg and other New York novelists discuss why that city's recent past is such an attractive setting for them.

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