Open Book

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Programme looking at new fiction and non-fiction books

Programme looking at new fiction and non-fiction books, talking to authors and publishers and unearthing lost classics

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Open Book: Hisham Matar

Hisham Matar

BBC Radio 4 - Open Book, Hisham Matar

Hisham Matar talks to Chris Power about his new novel, My Friends.

Pulitzer Prize-wining author Hisham Matar talks to Chris Power about his novel My Friends.

Chris Power talks to the writer Hisham Matar about his new novel My Friends. His previous books, including the Booker shortlisted In the Country of Men, Anatomy of a Disappearance, and the Pulitzer Prize winning The Return, have dealt with the difficulty of living in the shadow of oppressive regimes.  My Friends describes the relationship between three exiled friends from Libya - Khaled, Mustafa and Hosam - over several decades from the 1980s to the 2010s and the terrible events which were to shape the young men's lives in the UK. 

And we hear about two new psychological thrillers which take us into the glamour and underworld of stage and film. Chris MacDonald’s The Actor follows Adam who, on the brink of winning an Oscar, is haunted by his past life at a toxic drama school. Here In The Dark, by New York Times culture critic Alexis Soloski, follows theatre critic Vivian who gets caught up in a real-life missing person story which outdoes for drama the plays she spends so much of her time evaluating and eviscerating.

Book list - Sunday January 14 and Thursday January 18

In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar
Anatomy of a Disappearance by Hisham Matar
The Return by Hisham Matar
My Friends by Hisham Matar
The Actor by Chris MacDonald
Here in the Dark by Alexis Soloski
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
Theatre by William Somerset Maugham
Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
Shadow Play by Joseph O’Connor
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

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