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Episode details

Radio 3,31 Oct 2016,15 mins

SeriesThe Book that Changed Me

David Simon

The Essay

Available for over a year

David Simon, the author and creator of the TV series "The Wire", describes how "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" by James Agee and Walker Evans changed his work as a journalist. The celebrated work capturing the lives of ordinary people during the depression made him realise the importance of sharing "the simple, raw vulnerability" of lived experience. "Page after page was fully ripe with the delicate work of a thinking journalist who knows with all moral certitude that he is approaching and attempting to capture the love, fear and sadness of real lives." Producer: Smita Patel.

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