The Essay: Walk with Amal

Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Walk with Amal: Of Girls and Gulls, by Auguste Corteau

Walk with Amal

Of Girls and Gulls, by Auguste Corteau

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Walk with Amal, Of Girls and Gulls, by Auguste Corteau

Auguste Corteau writes in response to puppet refugee Little Amal's walk across Europe.

As the puppet Little Amal walks across Europe to reflect the journey made by many child refugees, five European writers respond in fiction. Auguste Corteau writes from Greece.

Little Amal is a 3.5m high puppet who has been walking nearly 9000 kilometres across Europe this summer in recognition of the journey made by thousands of child refugees every year in search of family members, safety and a new home. To mark this extraordinary project, five award-winning European writers have written short stories inspired by Amal’s walk. Each one has responded imaginatively to the puppet’s journey through their own country, reflecting the hopes and fears of both Amal herself and the people she encounters on her way. 

As she strides through the stories and across Europe, Amal takes on many guises. She’s a refugee child from a camp on the Turkish Syrian border, who sets off in search of her mother, accompanied by an alter-ego puppet guide; she’s befriended by a seagull in Greece; she strikes fear into the heart of a small, lonely boy in Italy; becomes the target for a kidnapping in Belgium… 

The Walk has been created by Good Chance Theatre, who started the theatre in the Calais Jungle and Handspring Puppet company, who created the puppets for War Horse. Little Amal began her walk in Turkey at the end of July and, helped by a team of puppeteers, performers, local people and arts organisations, she’ll walk nearly 9000km  across Europe, finishing in Manchester in November. She arrives in the UK, at Folkestone, on 19 October.

Of Girls and Gulls by Auguste Corteau tells of a scavenging seagull who bonds with the huge puppet-girl Amal as she is foraging for food on a rubbish tip outside Athens: both are far from home and in need of friendship. 

Auguste Corteau has written novels and short stories for adults and children, and has been awarded the Greek National Book Award for Children’s Literature and the IBBY Prize for Best Children’s Novel. His novel The Book of Katarina is published in English by Parthian Books and available as an audiobook. 


Producers: Sara Davies with Tobias Withers
A Cast Iron Radio Production

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Five commissioned short stories from Europe marking a refugee puppet's astonishing journey

As the puppet Little Amal walks across Europe to reflect the journey made by many child refugees, five European writers respond in fiction.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Essay

Walk with Amal

Of Girls and Gulls, by Auguste Corteau

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3