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Front Row: Andrew Patterson, Writing about Race, Mark Damazer Chair of Booker Prize Foundation

04/06/2020

Andrew Patterson, Writing about Race, Mark Damazer Chair of Booker Prize Foundation

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Andrew Patterson, Writing about Race, Mark Damazer Chair of Booker Prize Foundation

Andrew Patterson on The Vast of Night, an homage to 50s sci-fi TV.

Andrew Patterson on his debut film The Vast of Night.  Mark Damazer, new chair of the Booker Foundation.  Writing about race.

Director Andrew Patterson joins us to talk about new movie The Vast of Night, the story of a small New Mexico town disturbed by lights in the sky and unidentified radio signals which is a loving homage to the sci-fi TV of the 1950s. The low budget, high concept film, which is Patterson’s directorial debut, is available on Amazon Prime.

Writers Timberlake Wertenbaker and Winsome Pinnock talk about how white and black writers engage with race, and the importance and responsibility of white writers to talk about race and racism. 

Mark Damazer is the newly announced Chair of the Booker Prize Foundation which oversees the management of the Booker Prize and the International Booker Prize, for fiction in translation. After the Booker judges’ controversial decision in 2019 to split the main award between two authors, Bernadine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood, he joins us to talk about the Foundation’s plans for the year ahead.

It’s the 31st anniversary today of the massacre of thousands of protestors in Tiananmen Square. Writers, musicians and writers, such as Bei Dao, Duo Duo and singer Cui Jian, were involved in the movement for Democracy in China, and Front Row briefly reflects on their role. 

Presenter:  Tom Sutcliffe
Producer:  Julian May
Studio Manager:  Tim Heffer

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