Writing and Political Oppression
Melvyn Bragg examines how two writers’ work have been shaped by political oppression and explores whether writers have a political role in modern society. The connection between writers and politics has its roots in classical times, but in the 20th century the writer has been called on as the witness with increasing frequency and intensity. And many times the price of articulation has been severe. In the century in which saw the execution of writers such as Ken Saro Wiwa in Nigeria in 1995, and a fatwa imposed on Salman Rushdie, Melvyn Bragg talks to two writers who between them experienced exile, censorship and the manipulation of authoritarian states - Ariel Dorfman from South America and Nadine Gordimer, the Nobel Prize winner from South Africa, to discuss the writing of fiction and political oppression. What, if any, is the writer’s political role in our world today?
Guests
-
Nadine Gordimer No other episodes
Nobel Prize-winning South African novelist -
Ariel Dorfman No other episodes
South American journalist, scholar and author of Death and the Maiden
Related episodes
-
Hannah Arendt
25 Jun, 2020 320 Political science -
Milton
7 Mar, 2002 820 English and Old English literatures -
Literature
5 Jan, 2012 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism -
Politics in the 20th Century
22 Oct, 1998 320 Political science -
Nineteen Eighty-Four
15 Sep, 2022 820 English and Old English literatures -
Jorge Luis Borges
4 Jan, 2007 860 Spanish, Portuguese, Galician literatures -
Auden
19 Dec, 2019 820 English and Old English literatures -
William Morris
5 Jul, 2018 700 Arts -
Walter Benjamin
10 Feb, 2022 190 Modern Western Philosophy -
Literary Modernism
26 Apr, 2001 820 English and Old English literatures -
Freedom
4 Jul, 2002 320 Political science -
Sartre
7 Oct, 2004 840 French and related literatures -
War in the 20th Century
15 Oct, 1998 320 Political science -
Modern Culture
21 Jan, 1999 800 Literature, rhetoric and criticism -
Rudyard Kipling
16 Oct, 2014 820 English and Old English literatures -
Aristotle’s Politics
6 Nov, 2008 320 Political science -
Hitler in History
5 Oct, 2000 940 History of Europe -
Psychoanalysis and Democracy
11 Jul, 2002 150 Psychology -
Rawls’ Theory of Justice
19 Jan, 2023 320 Political science -
Edmund Burke
3 Jun, 2010 320 Political science
Programme ID: p00545g8
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00545g8
Auto-category: 320.01 (Political science and literature)