Toni Morrison's Beloved, Sound of 2016

Available for over a year

Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize winning novel Beloved has been our drama this week. We look at the influence it's had on modern fiction over the past 27 years with playwright Patricia Cumper, Dr Tessa Roynon who teaches at Oxford University and is the author of Toni Morrison and the Classical Tradition and writer Irenosen Okojie. BBC Sound of 2016: Canadian, Alessia Cara tells us about gaining confidence as a performer and getting on stage with Taylor Swift; and Nao, a singer songwriter from east London, performs her latest single It's You. Some listeners from this week's phone in tells us about making big life changes. New guidelines have been published on much alcohol it's safe to drink. And the message is that all drinking is deemed a risk. So should a pregnant woman drink at all? We discuss the issue with Dr Sally Marlow who researches addiction with a focus on alcohol at Kings College in London and Linda Geddes a freelance science and medical journalist and the author of Bumpology. Writer and radio critic Miranda Sawyer and podcast maker Helen Zaltzman on the best female-led podcast to listen to in 2016. Jessica Raine, famous for her role in Call the Midwife, tells us about her new part in ITV's period Drama Jericho set in an 1870s shantytown in the Yorkshire Dales. Presented by Jenni Murray Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed.