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As a boy growing up in Sudan, Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin stole a book of horror stories by Edgar Allan Poe from under his brother's pillow. Those stories made him want to be a writer. But under the government of President Omar al-Bashir, being a writer was a dangerous business. Baraka faced detention and harrassment and though he went on to win major literary prizes, he also earned the unwanted title of Sudan's first-ever banned writer.

When Paul Rousseau met Mark in the first year of university in the US, they quickly became best friends and moved in together. But Paul did not know that Mark had been keeping a collection of guns in his bedroom. In April 2017 one of Mark's guns accidentally went off, the bullet passing through two walls before striking Paul in the head. In the years that followed, Paul had to deal not only with his brain injury, but also the devastating impact the event had on his friendship with Mark.

When Joy France, a school teacher from Manchester, hit her mid-50s, she decided she wanted to shake things up a bit. What began with a commitment to try new things led her to the unlikeliest of places: the world of battle rap. At 61, she made her debut, earning her the title of the ‘world’s oldest battle rapper’ and continues to perform and battle internationally.

Lily Ebert, who has died at the age of 100, was just a teenager when war broke out across Europe. Born into a large Hungarian-Jewish family, she was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp after Germany invaded Hungary in 1944. She survived and later moved to Britain where she had a large family, never speaking of the horrors she had experienced. But in the 1980s, Lily started to revisit her experiences – and began to speak out. At the age of 97, with the help of her great-grandson Dov she became an unlikely TikTok star, sharing her story with a new generation of followers online. This interview was first broadcast in 2021.

Presenter: India Rakusen
Producer: Zoe Gelber

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(Photo: Cassette tape. Credit: Getty Images)