Meridian Episodes Episode guide
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Alan Sillitoe’s Down from the Hill
How drawing maps from an early age inspired the British postwar writer
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Simon Callow interview
The actor, writer and director looks back on his life and career
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Porgy and Bess: the world tour
The story of the 1950s international tour of George Gershwin’s opera
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Commonwealth Writers' Prize
The announcement of the winners in the Eurasian region
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Adapting books for the screen
From Adaptation to Gone to the Wind, the relationship between Hollywood and novels
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Linton Kwesi Johnson
An interview with the Jamaican reggae dub poet
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Fred D'Aguiar
An interview with the British-Guyanese poet, playwright and novelist
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Bernardine Evaristo
The British novelist talks about Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye
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Americanization: Part 3
How American popular music helped to spread the USA’s cultural revolution
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´óÏó´«Ã½ World Service Short Story Competition
The judges announce the winning writers from Zambia, Italy and Belgium
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Americanization: Part 4
How France embraces and resists American culture
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Ghandi’s The Story of my Experiments with Truth
The Indian writer and publisher Urvashi Butalia talks about Mahatma Ghandi’s autobiography
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Americanization: Part 2
How American architecture and food has worked its way into global culture
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Elizabeth Alexander and James G Basker
The African-American poet and academic discuss an anthology of poems about slavery
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Americanization: Part 1
How mass marketing and production made the American dream universal
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Anthony Julius and Hans Hacker
The British academic and the German-born artist discuss transgressive art
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Art and the marketplace
A discussion about market forces in two contrasting areas: pop music and fine art
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Shimmer Chinodya interview
The Zimbabwean novelist talks about writing for children
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The Art of Fireworks
How fireworks have appeared and influenced art across the world
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Raja Shehadeh interview
The Palestinian lawyer and writer on his memoir, Stranger in the House
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World Book Club: Ben Okri
The Nigerian born writer discusses his novel The Famished Road
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Edvard Munch's The Scream
The story behind one of the most unsettling paintings ever created.
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Waiting For Godot
A celebration of Samuel Beckett’s revolutionary play, 50 years after it was first performe
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Youssou N’Dour interview
The Senegalese musician talks about the power of lyrics
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Eric Hobsbawm interview
The Marxist historian talks about his life and key events of the 20th century
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Picasso: Les Mademoiselles d'Avignon
The story behind Picasso’s disturbing, defiant masterpiece
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Nigerian teenagers’ favourite novels
How the sex lives of young Nigerians are influenced by the novels they’ve read. Also on th
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World Book Club: Arundhati Roy
The Indian author answers your questions about her book The God of Small Things
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Electronic music pioneers
The enormous impact of the early electronic music pioneers on the music of today
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Writing and Prison
The Nigerian author Helon Habila talks about his novel Waiting for an Angel