David Peace
Friday 14 September 2007 21:45-22:30 (Radio 3)
Radio 3's cabaret of the word returns from its summer holidays.
Ian McMillan talks to the man Ian Rankin claims is the future of crime fiction, that's David Peace, author of GB84, The Damned Utd and Tokyo Year Zero
Playlist
The start of a new season of the Verb begins tonight with a programme devoted to writing about desolation - historical, political and geographical.
David Peace
David Peace has been hailed by masters of crime writing like Ian Rankin and James Elroy as the future of British crime fiction. His latest novel, Tokoyo Year Zero, is set in Japan in 1946, in a city under American occupation, stalked by disease and fought over by rival gangs.
On the Verb, David Peace tells Ian McMillan why he was drawn to this period of Japanese history, describes how it still affects the country today, and explains how he constructs his novels as a series of overlaid sonic landscapes, written more for the ear than the eye.
Anna Akhmatova
A mini masterclass on Anna Akhmatova, the great Russian poet who survived two world wars, the Bolshevik revolution, the civil war, and decades of internal exile under Stalin, when her work could not be published.
Writer Zinovy Zinik and historian Jana Howlett explain that while Akhmatova is loved by Russian readers and revered as a symbol of resistance outside Russia, within the country her reputation is fiercely contested.
Should changing views of a writers' life affect the way we see their work? Is it possible to appreciate tightly rhymed Russian poetry in English translation? And can a writer dead for over forty years pose a challenge to a contemporary regime? Ian McMillan finds out.
Also...
...there's a survey or writing about the Arctic and the Antarctic with Francis Spufford, editor of a new anthology of literature from the ends of the earth.
Roger McGough explains his part in an 800-line poem written by the people of Liverpool.
And there's new performance from Byron Vincent, a young poet who has moved house from Chorley, Lancashire, to Clifton, Bristol, and discovered two worlds poles apart.
Thats all on this weeks Verb on Radio 3.
Further details
Tokyo Year Zero is published by faber and faber
The Ends of the Earth Anthology is published by Granta
More information about the The Liverpool Saga is available from BBC Radio Merseyside
More information on the Anna Akhmatova evening at the Amnesty International UK headquarters, London, on Tuesday 19th, is available from [email protected]
