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World Book Club - Javier Cercas – Soldiers Of Salamis

Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed Spanish writer and historian Javier Cercas about his haunting novel Soldiers of Salamis.

Internationally feted and winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for 2004, Soldiers of Salamis delves into the painful history of Spain's Civil War through the gripping, death-defying story of fascist soldier Sanchez Mazas.

In his meditation on the nature of heroism and humanity in war, of remembrance and forgetting after war, the narrator moves from cynical indifference through fascination to wholehearted empathy as the true hero of the story eventually emerges centre stage.

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Start the Week - 28/02/2011

Andrew Marr with the former UN deputy secretary-general Mark Malloch-Brown, who argues that national governments are no longer equipped to address complex international issues. The Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski describes the "corrupt grandiosity" of the Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, and explains what is meant by the government's 'principled engagement' with the country. The historian David Gilmour looks back a hundred and fifty years to the unification of Italy, and considers whether it has ever really become a coherent nation-state. And the human rights lawyer, Baroness Helena Kennedy, believes we need to be more judgemental if we are to live an ethical life.

Producer: Katy Hickman.