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Front Row: Fela Kuti documentary; writing and reading trauma; The Queen's Gambit review

Fela Kuti documentary; writing and reading trauma

Fela Kuti documentary; writing and reading trauma; The Queen's Gambit review

BBC Radio 4 - Front Row, Fela Kuti documentary; writing and reading trauma; The Queen's Gambit review

Fela Kuti documentary maker, Biyi Bandele; books dealing with trauma; The Queen's Gambit

Biyi Bandele on the music and politics of Afrobeat founder, Fela Kuti. What are the issues for writers who choose to write about trauma? Roisin O'Connor reviews The Queen's Gambit.

Fela Kuti was the creator of Afrobeat – a blend of traditional Yoruba and Caribbean music with funk and jazz that exhilarated the global music scene in the 1970s and gave rise more recently to the Afrobeats scene from Burna Boy to Tiwa Savage. A new documentary by the Nigerian novelist and playwright Biyi Bandele aims to chart Fela Kuti’s rise to fame and politicisation in 1960s Lagos and the US. As Nigerians march the streets to protest at police brutality, using Fela Kuti’s music as a backdrop, Samira talks to Biyi Bandele about his musical and political legacy.  

With the Booker shortlist featuring books which deal with trauma – from Diana Cook’s The New Wilderness following a mother trying to keep her daughter safe after an environmental disaster and Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain about a childhood blighted by poverty and addiction in 1980s Glasgow we explore the issues for writers in writing about trauma in both fiction and non fiction with writers Meg Rosoff and Monique Roffey and the critic Suzi Feay.

The Queen’s Gambit is a new miniseries on Netflix which tells the story of a young female chess genius. It’s being hailed as “one of their best ever shows” but how is a drama about 32 chess pieces and 64 black and white squares so compelling? Roisin O’Connor is a big fan and eager to tell everyone how wonderful it is.

Main image: Fela Kuti
Image credit: Ian Dickson/Redferns

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Fela Kuti documentary; writing and reading trauma; The Queen's Gambit review

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