Whose Truth Is It Anyway?

Whose Truth Is It Anyway

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BBC Radio 4 LW

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Writer and broadcaster Damian Barr explores reality, truth and fiction in literature.

Writer and broadcaster Damian Barr grapples with the slippery idea of truth in literature - from memoir to fiction to writing that occupies all the areas in between.

Writer and broadcaster Damian Barr grapples with the slippery idea of truth in literature - from memoir to fiction to writing that occupies all the areas in between. What does it mean for a story to be true - and is the idea of truth changing? Who gets to decide whose truths make it into onto the page and into our bookshelves?

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Whose Truth Is It Anyway?: Fiction: True Lies

Fiction: True Lies

BBC Radio 4 - Whose Truth Is It Anyway?, Fiction: True Lies

Damian Barr explores facts, truth and lies in fiction.

Damian Barr explores facts, truth and lies in fiction. He talks to other writers about the slippery notion of truth in novels.

What does it mean for a story to be true? Writer and broadcaster Damian Barr grapples with the increasingly slippery idea of truth in books - from memoir to fiction and all the grey areas between. Reflecting on his own writing, Damian unpicks the different truths that writers and readers expect from different genres. Is our idea of truth changing? And who gets to decide whose truths make it onto the page and onto our shelves?

In this second episode, Damian reveals his own experiences with writing truth in fiction including how he came to partly dedicate his own novel, You Will Be Safe Here, to a boy who was killed at a paramilitary training camp in South Africa.

Damian explores whether readers should expect any truth in novels and whether writers hide truth in their fiction. He talks to Jo Browning Wroe, the author of A Terrible Kindness, about the responsibilities fiction writers have to the survivors of the real events they’re writing about. Writer and journalist, Sathnam Sanghera, shares his experiences of truth in fiction compared to other genres. Novelist, Graeme Macrae Burnet, tells Damian why there’s no such thing as truth in fiction but facts in fiction are another matter.

Written and presented by Damian Barr
Producer: Brian Meechan

An Overcoat Media production for BBC Radio 4

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