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-- details of "North African Short Stories (3): If She Comes" |
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| Network: | Radio 4 | |
Date: |
Wednesday, May 07, 2008 | |
Time: |
15:30 | |
Duration: |
14 | |
Presenter: |
William El-Gardi | |
Producer: |
Mark Whitaker, Mike Hally, Gillian Hush | |
Repeat date: |
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Repeat time: |
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Description:
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Stories from Egypt, Sudan and Tunisia, which offer sharp insights into little known worlds and unfamiliar situations, feature in Radio 4’s afternoon readings this week. Originally written in Arabic and translated into English for publication in the pioneering literary magazine Banipal, they raise questions about the legacies of colonialisation, the loss of cultural identity, the uncertain status of women and the tyranny of economic exploitation. They also reveal a subtlety of political engagement in countries where fiction can still be subject to stringent censorship. The writers are young and old,established and emerging, most of them little known in the UK, apart from the Sudanese Tayib Saleh, whose “Season of Migration to the North” is considered by many to be the most important Arab novel of the twentieth century. The stories are read by actors – all new to Radio 4 – who have Arabic as their mother tongue. They are part of the growing community of North African actors in this country |
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