Oliver Stone, Chimamanda Adichie, Web Harvesting

Available for over a year

With Samira Ahmed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses her new novel Americanah, which follows a young couple who flee the military dictatorship in Nigeria for America and London. As the British Library expands its archiving power by storing every UK Website, plus public tweets and Facebook entries, we ask what lies behind our need to collect everything and how does this exist alongside our right to disappear? To discuss archiving, Samira Ahmed is joined by novelist AS Byatt and historian Jane Humphries. American film director Oliver Stone (JFK, Savages, Platoon) discusses his documentary miniseries which uses new archive material and little known documents to explore an unconventional account of events that took place during the twentieth century that have shaped America's history. And how a twitter feud over Estonia's austerity measures became the unlikely topic for an opera. Samira talks to the Estonian composer Eugene Birman about his new cantata Nostra Culpa, which is based on a heated exchange between his country's President, Toomas Hendrik Ilves and the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman about Estonia economic reforms to tackle the recession. Produced by Ella-mai Robey.