1. Inner Lives

Available for over a year

'Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.' A century on from the publication of Mrs Dalloway, Fiona Shaw explores what Virginia Woolf has to say to us today. With Clarissa Dalloway as our guide, we discover how Woolf captured and critiqued a modern world that was transforming around her, treated mental health as a human experience rather than a medical condition, and challenged gender norms in ways that seem light years ahead of even our present day discourse. In this episode, Fiona Shaw speaks with authors, academics and artists inspired by Virginia Woolf, about how Woolf foregrounded interior lives. Fiona hears from authors Michael Cunningham, Mark Haddon and Naomi Alderman; Woolf biographer Alexandra Harris; filmmaker Sally Potter; Professor of Modernist Literature, Bryony Randall; Professor of English, Mark Hussey; and Professor of Twentieth Century Literature, Anna Snaith. Extracts read by Gwendoline Christie. Produced by Ellie Richold for BBC Audio Wales