Javier Marias on Thus Bad Begins

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Mariella Frostrup talks to award winning Spanish novelist Javier Marias whose latest book Thus Bad Begins explores an intimate, even suffocating, relationship between a film maker, his wife and a family friend all observed by the film maker's assistant. It's a novel about secrets, betrayal and deceit and the author talks about why this murky, shadowy world interests and inspires him. Also on the programme writers Tash Aw and Chris Abani discuss what happened when they were asked to compose essays about their own faces and Dr Sarah Dillon turns her expert close reading eye on to a disturbing extract from J M Coetzee's acclaimed novel Disgrace.