Identity Through Reading

Author Zoë Strachan charts her journey of self-discovery through reading. She describes how fiction helped her to find her identity as a gay woman and explains why she believes that access to books is vital for human flourishing. "While I was reading Swallows and Amazons, booksellers were being arrested for making available the kind of texts that changed my life. When we start banning books or censoring them from school libraries, we deny people the chance to read themselves into being."
Recorded in front of a live audience at the Kelburn Garden Party festival in the grounds of Kelburn Castle near Glasgow.
Presenter: Olly Mann
Producer: Sheila Cook