BBC Radio 4 LW

Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

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

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

The Odyssey Project: My Name Is Nobody

Drama

Writers from various diasporas create new radio poems in response to Homer's The Odyssey.

Writers from various diasporas create new radio poems in response to Europe's second oldest poem, Homer's The Odyssey.

The Odyssey Project: My Name Is Nobody: Series 1

Reza Mohammadi

Julian May

The Odyssey Project: My Name Is Nobody: Series 1: Odysseus in Kabul

Audiobooks

Drama: Classic & Period

27/04/2017

Odysseus in Kabul

Series 1

BBC Radio 4 - The Odyssey Project: My Name Is Nobody, Series 1, Odysseus in KabulSearch BBC

In Reza Mohammadi's response to Homer, Odysseus is doomed to witness carnage in Kabul.

Reza Mohammadi, a leading poet in Persian, sets his response to Homer in Kabul. Places and events in Afghanistan's capital and environs chime compellingly with The Odyssey.

Reza Mohammadi was born in Kandahar and is one of the leading poets writing in Persian today. In his poem Odysseus, returning from war, somehow winds up in Kabul and cannot escape it. Here 'the capital of stone', he is doomed to witness murder and decapitation of humans and gods alike. Even the topography of the Afghan capital parallels Homer, and all is soured by war. The mountain where Apollo resides is where the Scud missiles were fired from. The Tora Bora complex is like Polyphemus, the Cyclops's, cave. One of the holiest places in the city is where, now, addicts go to smoke opium. Nick Laird, the poet from Northern Ireland, worked with Mohammadi to render his poem into English. It is a work of astonishing, disturbing images, and yet is compellingly beautiful. 

The Afghan musician Milad Yousofi plays specially composed music on the rubab.

Producer: Julian May.

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

Writers create new radio poems in response to Homer's The Odyssey.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Odyssey Project: My Name Is Nobody

Series 1

Odysseus in Kabul

Contributors

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4