大象传媒

Philip Pullman's name often appears whenever anyone is compiling a list of the best writers in Britain. It also tends to appear whenever there's a reckoning of authors sceptical about organised religion. Even an endorsement a few years ago from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, of Pullman's most famous work, His Dark Materials, did little to dispel this notion. Now the flames of controversy are likely to flare up again with the publication of his new book -- The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. The book, which fulfils a promise Pullman made to the Archbishop, to write about Jesus and his place in Christian worship, is a re-telling of the Bible story. Pullman uses it to examine the way in which the Christian Church formulated its beliefs and established a canon of scripture and at the same time explores his long-standing fascination with the figure of Christ himself.

Philip Dodd meets Pullman at his home in Oxfordshire and in Night Waves we hear the outcome: a conversation that should range from religion and literature to contemporary politics and civic duty.