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David Lan on The Walk, The 2021 Booker Prize longlist, David Livingstone birthplace re-opening

Samira talks to theatre director David Lan live from Gaziantep about The Walk. We discuss the longlist for the 2021 Booker Prize. Petina Gappah on the David Livingstone Birthplace

As a 3.5 metre tall puppet called Little Amal begins an 8,000km journey from Turkey to Manchester to highlight the difficulties faced by refugee children, Samira talks to theatre director and producer David Lan live from Gaziantep on the Turkish-Syrian border about ambitious artistic project The Walk.

The longlist for the 2021 Booker Prize has been announced and we discuss the 13 chosen novels with Sameer Rahim from Prospect Magazine and Claire Armitstead from The Guardian. Are these the right titles? And who might be the eventual winner of the £50,000 prize?

Tomorrow the David Livingstone Birthplace re-opens following a £9.1m regeneration plan. The museum has not been simply refurbished, the story it tells of the famous explorer, the first European to see the Victoria Falls, has been revised. Zimbabwean novelist Petina Gappah, who spent years researching and writing about Livingstone, tells Samira Ahmed how she has given voice to those who worked with him and whom he met on his expeditions.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Julian May

Available now

28 minutes

The Walk

Good Chance’s The Walk, featuring Little Amal, will reach the UK on 19 Oct

Main image: Little Amal
Photo credit: Bevan Roos

Booker Prize Longlist 2021

Booker Prize Longlist 2021

A Passage North, Anuk Arudpragasam 
Second Place, Rachel Cusk
The Promise, Damon Galgut
The Sweetness of Water, Nathan Harris
Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro 
An Island, Karen Jennings 
A Town Called Solace, Mary Lawson 
No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood
The Fortune Men, Nadifa Mohamed
Bewilderment, Richard Powers
China Room, Sunjeev Sahota 
Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead 
Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford 


David Livingstone's Birthplace

Broadcast

  • Tue 27 Jul 202119:15

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