Crossings, the novel billed as the most daring debut in decades, is made up of three compelling stories: a letter written by lyric poet Charles Baudelaire to an illiterate young girl, a noir romance story in wartime Paris that begins in a graveyard and a tale about a woman with paranormal powers. They all weave together to create a stunningly imaginative story about seven lifetimes and two souls.Author Alex Landragin joins Angus Dalton to tell us about his travel writing days in Africa, how he 'stole' this stunning story, and why literature is 'a form of recorded empathy’.