Lionel Shriver on her controversial novel The New Republic

Available for over a year

Lionel Shriver discusses her controversial novel The New Republic, which looks at the relationship between terrorism, the media and achieving political goals. Set in the fictional southern peninsular of Portugal, a windblown, illiterate, gastronomically awful place, full of evil tasting and foul smelling local fruit, Barba has become the centre for a terrorist organisation and therefore the focus of the world's media. "Her first name was India - she was never able to get used to it". So starts Evan S Connell's 1959 classic novel Mrs Bridge, a tale of a woman trapped in her comfortable 1930s mid America world. We speak to its author, now in his late eighties, and to Joshua Ferris about its enduring appeal Reading Like A Writer, A Guide For People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them - author Francine Prose, who has been lecturing in literature for over twenty years, argues there is much to learn for writers and readers alike in the mining of the classic. Producer: Andrea Kidd.