The fascinating people behind some of the world's most popular and influential books
Salman Rushdie speaks about the devastating knife attack he was subjected to in 2022.
Lucy Worsley explores Agatha Christie’s haunted early life, revealing some secrets.
Hanif Kureishi explores his life and career using personal archive footage and his films.
David Olusoga looks at how African novelists became the conscience of their continent.
Profile of best-selling author Len Deighton, creator the Harry Palmer thriller series.
Helen Fielding tells the story of how Bridget Jones’s Diary came to be.
Shakespeare arrives in London, a hotbed of violence, and writes his bloodiest play.
Alan Yentob explores the life and work of Anglo-Nigerian author Bernardine Evaristo.
A revealing profile of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro.
Jane Austen is 17 and beginning to write stories.
Alan Yentob talks to acclaimed and curiously divided Irish writer Colm Toibin.
Nigel Williams trace the origins of Raymond Chandler's private eye Philip Marlowe.
Docudrama that creates a fascinating comparison of two iconic 20th-century writers.
A film from 1971 about writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon and the countryside where he grew up.
Author Jeanette Winterson talks to Jeremy Isaacs.
How women writers, women readers and women's lives have been central to the novel.
Programme from 1980 profiling writer/performer Victoria Wood and playwright Andrea Dunbar.
Acclaimed author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks to Emma Barnett.
Programme following the late Canadian novelist Carol Shields over the course of a year.
A look at the relationship between Arthur Conan Doyle and his creation Sherlock Holmes.
John le Carre talks about his writing and the main influences on his work. (1966)
Andrew O'Hagan journeys to the places in Scotland that inspired poet Robert Burns.
An immersive journey through the trailblazing life of Jackie Collins.
Jackie Kay explores the lives of some extraordinary, and often overlooked, Scottish poets.
