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PODCAST

The Essay

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

arts

All Episodes

14:04

Field of Dreams

The Essay ·

2023/09/28

Essays on the underappreciated aspects of well known pieces of culture. Writer Sarfraz Manzoor describes a moment from the film Field of Dreams and what it means to him.

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14:05

The Tiger Who Came to Tea

The Essay ·

2023/09/27

It’s in the minutiae of masterpieces that we feel their thrill and power.In this series of The Essay, five leading cultural voices choose a great work of art and talk about a small, underappreciated aspect of the piece that carries great meaning for them.Spectator Literary Editor Sam Leith explores his fascination with a background figure in Judith Kerr’s classic picture book ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’. Producer: Sam Peach

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13:38

Joan Williams

The Essay ·

2023/06/30

Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers.In this essay, he focuses on Joan Williams and her novel Old Powder. After her first novel was shortlisted for the National Book Award, this one failed. Did her former lover William Faulkner have something to do with it? For much of the 60s,

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13:32

Philip Roth

The Essay ·

2023/06/29

Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers.In this essay, he focuses on Philip Roth. Roth became permanently alienated from American Jews and even his own mother asked him if he was anti-Semitic. In light of his continuous production and the miraculous late flowering of his art, from

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13:43

Norman Mailer

The Essay ·

2023/06/28

Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers.In this essay, he focuses on Norman Mailer. His reputation as a novelist had gone down the toilet before he reinvented himself with the non-fiction novel. But there was a cost. Writers should be read and not heard was the ethos of the

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13:40

Amiri Baraka

The Essay ·

2023/06/27

Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers.This essay looks at Amiri Baraka previously known as LeRoi Jones. He was seen as a genuine heir to James Baldwin. A decade younger than Baldwin, Jones/Baraka arrived in Greenwich Village just as the Beat scene was reaching its zenith. He wrote

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13:37

William Styron

The Essay ·

2023/06/26

The 1960s are celebrated for the paradigm shift in American society. This shift was reflected in art and culture as well as politics. But these great changes were not accomplished without controversy. Even in the most slow-flowing art form, literature, great controversies burst out that are now forgotten, but they anticipate what is going on with today's cancel culture. They occurred without the multiplier effect of social media but dominated not just book pages but the society at large. Michael

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13:27

Roy McFarlane on Bilston

The Essay ·

2023/06/16

Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region. Roy McFarlane is revealing secrets about the area of Bilston in the Black Country. His focus is on Big Lizzy, an enormous blast furnace that dominated the skyline of the Black Country for decades. And also the black-owned Rising Star Night Club and Major's iconic Bilston chip shop.Roy was born in Birmingham but spent many years living in the Black Country. He’s a Poet and Playwright; has held the role of

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13:34

R.M. Francis on Wren’s Nest, Dudley

The Essay ·

2023/06/15

Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region.R.M. Francis is sharing the secret world of Wren’s Nest in Dudley. Once a site of intense mining, this was the UK’s first urban nature reserve. It’s world-famous geologically for its well-preserved Silurian coral reef fossils and is considered the most diverse and abundant fossil site in the British Isles. Surrounded by council houses, takeaways, pubs and supermarkets, Wren’s Nest is a very surprising place. RM

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13:36

Brendan Hawthorne on Toll End Road, Tipton

The Essay ·

2023/06/14

Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region.Brendan Hawthorne is revealing his hidden childhood world of Tipton. Think cooling towers, high-rise flats, scrapyard cranes and angel fish in the canal.Brendan is a poet, playwright, writer and musician who was born in Tipton in the Black Country. He’s released five collections of poetry and had two plays produced locally. He stood on Antony Gormley's Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and appeared on BBC One's

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13:30

Emma Purshouse on St Bart’s Church, Wednesbury.

The Essay ·

2023/06/13

Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region. Emma Purshouse is introducing a new visitor to St Barts Church which stands on the hill in Wednesbury. Think cock fights, an unimpeded wind from the Urals and orange chips.Emma was born in Wolverhampton and is a freelance writer, novelist and performance poet. She’s a poetry slam champion and performs regularly at spoken word nights including at The Cheltenham Literature Festival, Ledbury Poetry Festival,

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13:32

Liz Berry on Gorge Road, Sedgley

The Essay ·

2023/06/12

Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region. Poet Liz Berry is taking a nighttime drive to the top of a hill in the Black Country to visit the ghosts of her childhood in Sedgley. Liz’s first book of poems, Black Country, a ‘sooty, soaring hymn to her native West Midlands’ (Guardian) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, received a Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award and Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Liz's pamphlet The

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13:48

Geoff Dyer on DH Lawrence

The Essay ·

2023/06/09

Five writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.In this final essay of the series, Geoff Dyer retraces a pilgrimage to New Mexico, where DH Lawrence’s ashes were supposedly built into a concrete shrine near Taos at the request of his estranged wife Frieda. But were they actually his ashes?Dyer is a multi-award winning novelist and non-fiction writer. His many books include Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of

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13:27

Brandon Taylor on Langston Hughes

The Essay ·

2023/06/08

Five writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.Today, Brandon Taylor travels uptown through a racially-charged Manhattan to Harlem, where Langston Hughes is buried in a library - literally underneath his prophetic words.Taylor is a New York-based novelist, essayist and short story writer originally from Alabama. His novel Real Life was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and his latest The Late Americans will be

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13:49

Helen Mort on Sylvia Plath

The Essay ·

2023/06/07

Five more writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.Today Helen Mort ventures up a Yorkshire hill to find Sylvia Plath’s much-vandalised gravestone, a battleground for those claiming the American poet's contested legacy. Born in Sheffield, Mort is an award-winning poet and novelist.Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

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13:49

Tracy Chevalier on Thomas Hardy

The Essay ·

2023/06/06

Five more writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.Today Tracy Chevalier strolls to Stinsford, the Dorset village where Thomas Hardy’s heart is poetically buried separately from his body at Poets' Corner, Westminster – echoing the writer’s divided self.Chevalier was born in America but now lives in Hardy's beloved home county, Dorset. She has written 11 novels, including Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was

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13:52

Naomi Alderman on Mary Wollstonecraft

The Essay ·

2023/06/05

Five more writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes.Today in the first essay of a new series, Naomi Alderman goes in search of Mary Wollstonecraft's tomb in Old St Pancras churchyard - reputedly the spot where, among other things, Wollstonecraft’s daughter Mary Shelley learnt to write. She sheds light on the life of this important feminist pioneer, offering a moving personal reflection on mother-daughter

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13:29

Emilia Lanyer

The Essay ·

2023/05/05

Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers

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13:29

Mohammed al-Annuri

The Essay ·

2023/05/04

Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers

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13:29

Roderigo Lopez

The Essay ·

2023/05/03

Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England.The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers

en

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