Meet the Writers

Georgina Godwin speaks to one of the most successful crime-fiction novelists in the UK, Ian Rankin. He is the internationally best-selling author of more than 40 books, including the Inspector Rebus novels, which have been translated into more than 20 languages. He is the recipient of the Edgar Award, four CWA Dagger Awards and last year won the British Book Award for best crime and thriller book. He discusses his new Amazon Originals project, a standalone short thriller set in London’s most exclusive high-rise – a pacy story perfect for your morning commute.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Winner of Pulitzer and Nobel prizes, the late Toni Morrison was one of the all-time great American novelists. For the inaugural Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, she was paired with Australian writer Julia Leigh, who was busy writing her second novel, Disquiet. Hear Kerry Fox read an extract from that book in the latest episode ofA Word in Your Ear.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Award-winning British journalist Ros Atkins joins Georgina Godwin in today’s episode. He is analysis editor and presenter of Outside Source at the BBC but started out at as a news producer on BBC Radio Five Live more than twenty years ago. Ros talks about his book ‘The Art of Explanation: How to Communicate with Clarity and Confidence’. He also takes us back to his Cornish roots, as well as his stint at ‘The Sunday Independent’ in South Africa, and reveals how learning a musical instrument and DJing influenced his ideas on what makes for successful communication.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Colombian writer Antonio García Ángel was just 33 years old when the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative paired him with the great Peruvian novelist – and later Nobel literature laureate – Mario Vargas Llosa. A dozen books followed. For the latest episode of A Word in Your Ear, actor Robert Glenister reads ‘Round Numbers’, a short story by Ángel in translation.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Georgina Godwin interviews former editor in chief of Bloomsbury Publishing, Alexandra Pringle, who held the post for twenty years. Her list of authors includes William Boyd, Margaret Atwood, Richard Ford, Khaled Hosseini and Kamila Shamsie. She joined Virago Press in 1978 and helped to launch their Modern Classics series, which championed out-of-print books by forgotten female authors. She speaks to Georgina about her early failures, trusting your editorial gut and her latest venture, Silk Road Slippers.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Renowned Mozambique author Mia Couto still works as a biologist – an apt side career for someone who dissects complex subjects with precise curiosity. For the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, Couto coaxed Brazilian writer Julián Fuks into exploring his imagination further. Listen to the results as Alex Jennings reads an excerpt from ‘A Time of Death, the Death of Time’.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today’s episode, award-winning American author of fiction, memoir and poetry Henry Hoke speaks to Georgina Godwin about his fifth book, ‘Open Throat’. It follows a queer mountain lion, desperate for food and struggling to survive in drought-stricken Los Angeles, who takes us on a tour of the city’s cruel inequalities. Hoke is also the co-creator of Enter>text, a series of large-scale immersive literary events, and an editor at literary magazine ‘The Offing’. In this conversation, the writer talks about writing and responding to 9/11, his unusual encounter with Bill Murray, and why his work continues to defy genre.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thanks to the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, Colin Barrett was able to write his debut novel under the mentorship of one of Ireland’s most beloved novelists, Colm Tóibín. Monocle Radio’s Meet the Writers special season, A Word in Your Ear, continues with actress Niamh Cusack reading from ‘The Ways’, a short story from Barrett’s latest collection, ‘Homesickness’.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Journalist, author and broadcaster Polly Toynbee, joins Georgina Godwin on the show this week. She is a Guardian columnist and previously worked as social affairs editor for the BBC, as well as ‘The Independent’. Early on in her career, she spent eight months experiencing manual work ‘undercover’ with stints as a nurse and Army recruit, which she details in her first book ‘A Working Life’, published in 1970. She has won numerous awards, including the Orwell Prize, for her impressive body of work on social affairs, continuing a family tradition of attempting to eradicate class divides in Britain. Her new book, ‘An Uneasy Inheritance: My Family and Other Radicals’ charts how her ancestors grappled with this and looks further into how the issue is being dealt with today.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

“Literature needs flaws,” says Tahar Ben Jelloun. The accomplished Moroccan author had some tough love for his protégé on the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, Edem Awumey. Listen to the acclaimed actor Paterson Joseph read a translated extract from Awumey’s powerful new novel, ‘Noces de Coton’, in the latest episode of A Word in Your Ear.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.