Free Thinking

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Free Thinking: Maryse Condé's writing plus Suzanne O'Sullivan

Maryse Condé's writing plus Suzanne O'Sullivan

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Maryse Condé's writing plus Suzanne O'Sullivan

Shahidha Bari reads I Tituba, the story of the West Indian slave accused in Salem.

Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan has tracked stories of mystery sleeping sicknesses and group medical disorders around the globe, conditions which have some echoes of the Salem witch trials.

The West Indian slave accused of witchcraft at Salem inspired Maryse Condé's 1968 novel I Tituba. It's been voted one of the 100 Caribbean Books That Made Us in a poll organised by the Bocas Lit Fest so in a conversation organised in partnership with that festival and the Royal Society of Literature, Shahidha Bari talks with New Generation Thinker Alexandra Reza and Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat about Condé's writing.   She also talks to Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan about the mystery illnesses which she has been tracking down around the globe.  Her book The Sleeping Beauties was sparked by meeting refugee children in Sweden who can't get out of their beds and it takes Suzanne to a modern day American town where she finds medical disorders with some parallels to events in Salem in 1692.  

Suzanne O'Sullivan is a former winner of the Wellcome Book Prize for It's All In Your Head and you can find a conversation with her about her book Brainstorm in the Free Thinking archives  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09z67gr   
and in this discussion marking 100 years since Freud's paper The Unconscious https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06r5gp6 
The Bocas Lit Fest runs online from April 23rd to 25th https://www.bocaslitfest.com/    One of the events will be revealing the 100 authors on their list of Caribbean Books That Made Us. 
Edwidge Danticat has published books including Breath, Eyes, Memory; Claire of the Sea Light and a collection of stories Everything Inside which won the 2020 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature for fiction
Alexandra Reza is a BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.  You can hear her Essay on Colonial Papers being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on April 27th 
She has also taken part in Free Thinking discussions about the writing of Aimé Césaire https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nmxf and the writing of Frantz Fanon 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tdtn 

Producer: Robyn Read

Image: French writer Maryse Conde poses while attending the Saint Malo Festival des Etonnants voyageurs on 10 May 2008 in Saint Malo, France
Credit: Sophie Bassouls/Sygma via Getty Images

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Maryse Condé's writing plus Suzanne O'Sullivan

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