The Verb

Between Two Countries

03.01.2019 - By BBC Radio 3Play

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Download on the App StoreGet it on Google Play

Ian McMillan explores what happens when writers have to shift their thoughts and feelings into a second language. Novelist Patrick McGuinness argues that he can 'feel more than he can say in French, and say more than he can feel in English', Nick Makoha brings us a new poetry commission inspired by leaving Uganda (and three languages behind) when he was only four. We also hear about the 'Polish Sappho' - the groundbreaking poet Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska who moved to Blackpool during the Second World War, and Heather Dohollau (who was born in Wales , but became an acclaimed poet in French). And our returning guest, the poet Kate Fox skewers that the familiar trope of the book blurb - the writer who 'divides their time' by choice - between two equally glamorous locations.

More episodes from The Verb