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Part stunning literary thriller, part gothic novel, the book The Shadow of the Wind is a page-turning exploration of obsession in literature and love, and the places that obsession can lead.
It is a potent mix of a coming-of-age novel and a tragic love story set in Barcelona's post-war years. Harriet Gilbert puts questions from the audience to the author Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
Harriett Gilbert talks to David Mitchell about his novel Cloud Atlas.
Richard Ford discusses his classic novel 'The Sportswriter' with Harriett Gilbert and an invited studio audience.
French Nobel Laureate JMG Le Clezio talks to Harriett Gilbert in front of an invited studio audience about his recently-translated work Desert.
Contrasting the beauty of a lost culture in the North African desert with a depiction of Europe seen through the eyes of unwanted immigrants, the novel is a rich, poetic and provocative epic about colonization and its legacy, which is still painfully relevant after 30 years.
John Boyne discusses his acclaimed novel 'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas' with Harriett Gilbert and an invited studio audience.
Harriet Gilbert talks to Andrea Levy about Small Island, a heart-warming and tale of love and immigration during World War II.
Harriett Gilbert talks to Indian writer Kiran Desai about her internationally bestselling work The Inheritance of Loss.
Winner of the Man Booker prize in 2006, Desai’s novel is a profoundly moving cross-continental saga that sweeps around the globe from the Himalayas to New York City to Cambridge in the UK.
Reflecting the author’s own Indian-American upbringing the novel interweaves the grand disruptions of politics with the domestic lives and loves of three memorable characters, the morose judge, his lovelorn granddaughter Sai and their devoted, long-suffering cook.
James Ellroy discusses his novel American Tabloid with Harriett Gilbert and an invited audience.
Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed Egyptian writer Alaa Al-Aswany about his bestselling novel The Yacoubian Building.
It was the Arab world’s number-one bestseller for five years running after it was published in 2002.
The Yacoubian Building interweaves the stories of a group of diverse characters who live and work in downtown Cairo.
A moving study of politics and power, sex and revenge - centred on the apartment building - the Yacoubian building, which still stands in Cairo today.
The novel offers a compelling yet daringly scathing portrayal of modern Egypt since the Revolution of 1952.
Half a century on from its first publication, G�nter Grass will be talking about The Tin Drum from his home in Lubeck, Germany.