Night Waves

13 January 2006

Friday 13 January 2006 21:30-22:00 (Radio 3)

Photographs of the American Depression, memories of the Spanish Civil War and a children's book about the Holocaust.

Duration:

30 minutes

Soviet Times Exhibition

Programme Details

Walker Evans was commissioned to travel through the American South to record, with his friend, the writer James Agee, the plight of tenant farmers. Fortune magazine rejected Agee's text, which in time emerged as "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men". Evan's photographs, documenting the lives of three Alabama families, became icons of the era. These powerful large format black and white images form the core of a new touring exhibition by the Hayward Gallery of Walker Evans's photographs captured during the years of 1935 and 1936.

The Spanish Civil War ended in 1939, but, in part due to the long reign of Franco, it is only recently that Spanish writers and historians have started digesting the complex pain of the conflict. Author Javier Cercas and translator Nick Caistor will be untangling the stories on the edge of living memory.

Ever since the publication of The Diary of Anne Frank, books about the Holocaust have had an uneasy fascination for children. John Boyne's novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, takes thing a stage further, seeing Auschwitz through the eyes of a nine year old boy, son of the Camp Commandant. Julia Eccleshare, Children's Editor of the Guardian Review, gives her opinion.

Additional Information:

The Walker Evans Exhibition: 1935-36 is at mac, Birmingham 14 January - 19 March 2006. Click here to locate details of the rest of the UK tour.

The Boy in Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne is published by David Fickling

The Sleeping Voice by Dulce Chacon is published by Harvill Secker.

El Nombre Que Ahora Digo by Antonio Soler is published by Premio Primavera.

Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas is published by Bloomsbury.

Night Waves

Episode and Playlist Information

• 23 January 2006
• 20 January 2006
• 19 January 2006
• 18 January 2006
• 17 January 2006
• 16 January 2006
• 13 January 2006
• 12 January 2006
• 11 January 2006
• 10 January 2006