Take Four Books - Ben Okri
Booker-prize winning writer and poet Ben Okri talks to Take Four Books, presented by James Crawford, about his new novella - Madame Sosostris & the Festival for the Broken-Hearted - and its three key influences. Ben's new book takes us to a forested chateau in the South of France for a special, one-night-only event – a fevered fancy dress ball attended by anyone, and everyone, who has been wounded by love. His three literary influences for this episode are: The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot from 1922 ; Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare from 1600; and The Outsider by Albert Camus from 1942. Our rule-breaking bonus book, was Alain-Fournier’s Les Grand Meaulnes, known as The Lost Estate in English and originally published in 1913.
The supporting contributor for this episode was the Oxford academic and writer Emma Smith.
Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.
Published on Sunday, 11th May 2025.
Available Podcasts from Take Four Books
We are not the BBC, we only list available podcasts. To find out more about the programme including episodes available on BBC iPlayer, go to the Take Four Books webpage.