大象传媒

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鈥檙e 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鈥檚 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 大象传媒 Radio 4