Burroughs at 100

William Burroughs was born 100 years ago this year and various books and articles have appeared to commemorate his life and work. The introduction to Junky by Will Self for the new Penguin Classics edition is an excellent, clear-eyed introduction to that great book and the complex and flawed man who wrote it. Self appears in this BBC Radio 4 documentary too, but where often he appears in programmes as a radical, shocking from the margins, here he represents the spoil-sport voice of conservatism, arguing, for instance, that idolism served to enable Burroughs the addict. He isn't given much of a platform however, the makers preferring a breathless ride through the life and legend of Burroughs the cultural icon, with Iggy Pop doing a fine and entertaining job as the driver. Not too deep but good fun.

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Father's Last Escape

The New Yorker Fiction podcast explores the magazine's short story archive by inviting an author it has published in the past to choose and read a story from that archive.
Here Nicole Krauss reads “Father’s Last Escape,” by Bruno Schulz, published by the New Yorker in 1978 and part of "Sanatorium under the sign of the hourglass".

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HearSay Audio Prize: Aran of the Saints

One of the best things about Hearsay last weekend was the awards strand. The festival had an open call for new works of up to six minutes in length without any thematic or stylistic criteria. Various prizes were awarded - the winning pieces can be found in the festival's soundcloud page.  My own favourite was Brendan Rehill's sonic portrait of Inis Oirr, an immersive and highly authored piece that swells and moves through the small, unique world it inhabits.

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In Our Time: Kafka's The Trial

In Our Time has been running on BBC Radio 4 for sixteen years but before yesterday had never devoted a programme to Kafka. Here Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Trial:

"Franz Kafka's novel of power and alienation 'The Trial', in which readers follow the protagonist Joseph K into a bizarre, nightmarish world in which he stands accused of an unknown crime; courts of interrogation convene in obscure tenement buildings; and there seems to be no escape from a crushing, oppressive bureaucracy." - BBC

Guests include Ritchie Robertson, one of the main forces behind the excellent recent Oxford Classics editions of Kafka's fiction, which through new translations lift the work out of the slightly patrician editorship of Willa and Edwin Muir, breathing new and mysterious life into the writing for English-language readers.

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Soul Music: Strange Fruit

It is never a bad time to explore the history of America's race relations. Current events in Ferguson, Missouri play out within living memory of public killings of black people by white mobs - the bodies hanging from the trees the 'strange fruit' of Abel Meeropol's angry song. Here Maggie Ayre uses the track, made famous by Billie Holiday, as a way in to the dark era that preceded the eruption of the civil rights movement.

'"Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root..." Billie Holiday's famous song expresses the horror and anguish of those communities subjected to a campaign of lynching in the American South. Soul Music hears the stories of people whose relatives were lynched by white racists and of the various forms of grief, anger and reconciliation that have followed. These include the cousin of teenager Emmett Till, whose killing in 1955 for whistling at a white woman, added powerful impetus to the civil rights movement.' BBC

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All in Time

Sarah Boothroyd's immersive, impressionistic treatment of her subjects relies heavily on remarkable editing and deep archival digging. Here she takes on no smaller a subject than Time.

"Guided by science and science fiction, All In Time traverses the timeless mystery of time itself."

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Wireless Nights

A mysterious, intimate, meandering journey through the world of the night with Jarvis Cocker from BBC Radio 4.

"Jarvis Cocker prowls the dark, finding stories of the night people in a Prix Italia winning series.
Tonight, in an edition which won the Prix Italia for Extraordinary Originality and Innovation - a top European radio prize - the theme is Overnight Delivery. Jarvis boards the red-eye, taking a transatlantic flight of the imagination - peering down at the human dramas beneath as the world slowly rotates - accompanied by Jarvis' own musical selections."
- BBC Website

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