Mrs Thatcher and the Writers

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Mrs Thatcher and The Writers

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BBC Radio 4 Extra - Mrs Thatcher and The Writers

Three Booker Prize winners give their view on Margaret Thatcher's influence on fiction.

4 Extra Debut. DJ Taylor explores Margaret Thatcher's influence on fiction. With Alan Hollinghurst, Ian McEwan and Hilary Mantel. From 2015.

At the height of her Premiership Margaret Thatcher attended a series of small, discreet dinners with leading writers of the period including Philip Larkin, Anthony Powell, Max Egremont and VS Naipaul. 

DJ Taylor hears from some of those who took tea with Mrs T and asks why writers of the right and left were, and still are, mesmerised by her. 

Revealing letters and diaries give a sense of the dinners as they unfolded and three of Britain's leading novelists, Hilary Mantel, Alan Hollinghurst and Ian McEwan - all winners of the Booker Prize - have since written novels or short stories that include a fictionalised Margaret Thatcher. 

In Hilary Mantel's case twice. So why does the former prime minister continue to fascinate, and will any writer take on the challenge of putting her centre stage, instead, as she has been until now, on the periphery?

With: 

Hilary Mantel
Alan Hollinghurst
Ian McEwan
Charles Moore
Max Egremont
Bella Thomas
 
Producer: Nicola Swords
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2015.

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