Hello and welcome to the arts at the Hay literary festival in Wales this year the festival turns 30 and is one of the world's leading literary gatherings over 10 days and 500 events the tents and walkways in this green picturesque area asked filled with writers think is and people with ideas hey is about conversation as u.s. President Bill Clinton once famously said it's Woodstock of the mind I'm lucky baby we're on stage in the b.b.c. Tent and we've got live music live poetry star guests and a live audience you. Was. With me on the Arts our stage our Turkish writer Ilesha fuck British Egyptian poet and playwright Sabrina Matthews Czech novelist Jaroslav cull far the Iceland Welling American musician and songwriter John Grant and the Mali and French singer songwriter superstar in a mode all our guests today are multi-lingual and can think write perform in different languages which language they choose to use and why though Elif should fuck you wrote your latest book 3 daughters of ease which I loved by the way in English 1st and then Turkish later why was that thank you it's lovely to be here I'm not sure that was a rational decision. To start writing in English but I did so about 1415 years ago all my only novels were written in Turkish 1st and then I switched to writing in English 1st ever since then each novel is written in English 1st then translated into Turkish by a professional translator then I take that translation and I rewrite so it's been a bit irrational and insane but I love it I love the commute back and forth between languages all the time I realise there are things I find much easier to write in English so when it comes to humor irony. Satire definitely in English but I think melancholy Sora longing it's much easier to express some Turkish junk won't you speak 5 languages including Russian and Icelandic although he also spoke in Turkish with their lives so maybe it's 6 languages Your songs are in English could you sing about hemorrhoids in Icelandic Now if you don't know John's track great Eccles black pressure do go and download it after the show or will become clear could do that and Icelandic. I don't think I could you. Know I think I've sort of met my match with Icelandic and it's this strange combination of you know be turning 50 next year and when I learned German and Russian I was you know I was 19 when I started doing that so the brain is not as soft and malleable as it once was plus Icelandic is one of the most difficult languages for English speaking people to learn because of the grammar the combination of the grammar and the phonetics so I don't even think I can remember the word for hemorrhoids right now Ok. I'm getting there I guess the audience but we haven't got time Jaroslav help you learn to speak English when you move from Prague to the United States is a 15 year old and if legend is to be believed it was the cost to network that taught you is that true that is a part of the legend Yes. As soon as I got to America I enrolled in high school and of course I was put into one of those English a 2nd language classes in a sort high school and fortunately. They were teaching me in that class was a very mostly the things I already knew how to say dog how to say Apple So really I just ended up learning English from the Cartoon Network from watching American sitcoms like friends I don't think was a Powerpuff it was that I hated the. You know it's a your language is include bumbler out one of the languages of Mali when you use that what does it mean to you actually Bamber is the language that we use in Mali to communicate with different ethnic groups so for me Bamber is a language from the heart so it's very emotional when I sing in Barbara and Sabrina Do you ever use Arabic in your work in your poetry. If I think that is very it's very unlikely for a lot of people to be in the room when I when I read it now because my pronunciation I think have been a strong long. An accent gets it gets a lot of laughs in the wrong places I'm trying to be really serious and make them big political points and people just cracking up all over so I don't use it very much but I would like to do so more should run and emote it's time for live music Now let me tell you a bit about you know facts because she's a musician a model and actress and activist and as a girl she was meant to buy the legendary Mali and Afro pop star skater so Hayes 30th anniversary the festival has chosen 30 young novelists scientists philosophers performers and activists who are astonishing and inspiring and they believe that these are the people who will help imagine and shape the world in the next 30 years Ina is one of them on her most recent album motel Bamako she wraps and sings in English. Her lyrics are political She's especially vocal about the situation for women and girls in the north of Mali and she's also a campaigner against f.p.m. Female genital mutilation you know what are you going to perform for us 1st I'm going to perform the song water a little you. I used to walk 100 miles to get her done but be bold curious troop all up 100 miles to get her to get aboard our Ira. It used to belong 100 miles to get her farmland the bones carries through 102 gallon Burdzhanadze gallon logs our line. Be down my line doing more gold after getting in some little new Thank you very much I did turning on the money in the love. Too good to do put my 900 pound the lady down on the high see me all but gone on to disown the last. Number one on the my whole life. I've been sick can't bring in enough. Hide to be blind now. Now new dog got enough feelin lad. Is used to walk 100 miles to the gallon for dull farm no Be bold Jerry still love 100 miles to get her dog to gather her diary. But I loudly go to Washington to be cheeky meaning she told me gee magic only to pull on the man so negative number but. If I chose I mean. The shit out of my knee be. Together. Number one on the wall like. This again the nanny must. Hide the big one now. No new top down enough to be needed out. And used to belong 100 miles to gather. Big bold cues to bomb 100 miles to get a bulldog to get Bordighera. The life kids heart and the desert against the Blues I dare you I'll go Holland sought out shoes my brothers are marching the 1000 Miles we are at the same dream broken spawning the way from hell straight to the sea get on the gold cause they have to see the elder got on the other side hang. On. I used to be long 100 miles away so get on board. Be bombing here is too far I'm wondering mousing do gather. Together more die. Jews do form 100 miles going to get on board. Be both of us to bar 100 miles to get the drugs you got bored darling. I use to blow our 100 miles to get. Be bold Here's do you walk 100 miles in here to get on board dog's ill gotten boards are lying. Out. Thank you no most that was fabulous and saber on guitar thank you both so the track you just played water it's about the urgent need to come that water shortages in some parts of the world there's a reference to your brothers marching towards water for an elder Raj you also on your latest album have a track called John Buck 2 and that highlights the situation the violent situation in Mali in 2012 and the desperate outcome for some of the women there when you started your life as a musician you didn't combine activism with music they were separate What made you put them both together actually I started doing music when I was 15 I was in Mali so I was just learning about Mali music and then I moved to Europe and I wanted to separate my activism from my music because music was a kind of escape for me and because I'm an activist for women's right and against. Very heavy topics like female genital mutilations and it's not always easy as a woman I started being an activist when I was 19 and it was really violent and we were people can be really aggressive in and so I wanted my music to be a safe place for me and so I was singing about other people I didn't want to talk about myself and my own experience as. F.d.m. Survivor because I went through if g.m. When I was 4 years old and I wanted to get really it's it was too much connected to myself and something a wound that I had so I didn't want the music to be. Part of it but then slowly I became stronger and more resilient and music was it was more powerful to combine what I was doing for almost 12 years with my music and my voice I had no idea that in some parts of Africa if a woman is hurt she takes of her clothes in the street and I just wonder whether that's why on your latest single you are naked but you have a bandana across your face is that to show your heart yes actually it wasn't me but it's one of my friend I wanted to show this tradition of African women when when you see a woman. Getting taking off clothes in the street and marching you know that something really terrible tragic just happened and I remembered when I was a kid my mother telling me about but she was wife we don't know when he was assassinated and she took all her clothes and she marched to show how hurt she was how angry and how desperate she was and we had it also happening in Mali a lot of times so for me it was showing that the woman the body of a woman can be a place where all the wars happen but also. It's we have to be free and we have the rise this body is ours and nobody should do anything to it and we should have the right to to to do whatever we choose to do with our own bodies so that's why. The girl is half naked would reach in freedom on her chest in a thank you so very much we'll have more from you know later in the show you're listening to the with me Nicky baby on the b.b.c. World Service and we're at the Hay literary festival to now friend of the show and the most widely read female novelist in Turkey She's the author of 15 books and you might remember her novel The Bastard of Istanbul provoked a court case in 2006 that led to her acquittal on a charge of insulting Turkishness at least a journalist an academic and active political commentator She's big on gender equality and freedom of expression and you better know your stuff if you want to take her on if you are familiar with the expression I insist in a velvet glove that if and I say that with admiration obviously her latest novel 3 daughters of ease is in part about 3 very different Middle Eastern women studying at Oxford University. In the u.k. Relief your heroine Perry has a secular Kemal list father and an ultra conservative religious mother I'd call her superstitious as well as religious and there's constant tension in that house how far does that sound really represent the wider contradictions between Western ideas and cultural Islam within Turkish society. Because you know Turkey is a very polarized and bitterly politicise country and we have become almost divided into islands of people who do not necessarily talk to each other who don't break bread together anymore and the character in my latest novel theory yes she comes from a very divided very fragmented family her father is a modernist he's someone who believes in enlightenment and he very much wholeheartedly support stage occasion of his daughter West the mother is very religious and her understanding of Islam is based on fear like a celestial gaze always watching you're writing down your sins and she grows up in the same Vironment thanks to her father's encourage ones and her own hard work she comes to Oxford University and that is where I talk about 3 different girls one of them is Iranian British Sheerin she's an atheist she's the child of exiled parents parents who had to run away from fanaticism from Islamic fundamentalism Shirin is very critical of all religions but in particular of Islam because of the lack of gender equality there is more now which is who is Egyptian American She wears a headscarf she is a practicing Muslim and she complains about Islamophobia because this is something she experiences and last of this period was lots of questions in our minds so they draw kingly call themselves the sinner the believer and the confused and this is a book that very much focuses on the confused and the confusions of our time well it certainly spoke to me and because Perry from the very beginning. You sense that she wanted not one dialogue or the other but some sort of middle path and where you'll need to read the book if you want to discover how they all work their way through Oxford or not as the case may be it's being described as a novel that represents some of the most common issues that Muslim women encounter across the world is it is there a part of it that's autobiographical for you it was it was quite challenging for me to write this novel because as writers we like to keep a little bit of distance between ourselves and the subject with tackling whereas this time I wrote this book in 2016 and during that time more than 35 terror attacks happened in Turkey and it was so schizophrenia almost when I would go to dinners in Turkey one moment people would be talking about very Monday and things and the next moment you will be talking about death because you just heard there was a suicide bombing and then the next moment something else so the shift in moods and the anger a lot of things that I observed heard directly somehow seeped into this book but if I may add this it's not a coincidence that women are at the forefront of this book because I think all across the Muslim world today women are asking the most difficult questions and that's all the questions because when countries go backwards when they tumble into fanaticism or populism or for terrorism we women have much more to lose than men. I think it speaks to all women personally and each of those characters spoke to me you began writing your novels in English as we talked about now you translate them into Turkish afterwards but as a Turkish writer with a profile in non Muslim countries what kind of pressures do you feel. There are those so many pressures I think when you country like Turkey it's quite patriarchal very homophobic very sexist and when you what happened to be a woman. Right so you're primarily a woman in the eyes of the society and then a writer nobody asks a male novelist's gender related questions and the literary world even though at the 1st glance it might seem different when you scratch the surface it is equally patriarchal equally sexist So these are societies that to always like to remind women of their of their place but to be honest I think when you come from a country like Turkey or Egypt or Nigeria or Pakistan where there are worldly democracy as a wounded democracies you do not have the luxury of being a political as a writer so I don't think we can just close our doors and say I'm just going to stay in my own in my own imaginary world it's a challenge for us because as writers were introverted creatures and yet politics is so urgent you have to respond to it so for me it's very important to ask questions lots of questions about difficult issues political sexual cultural taboos and then leave the answers to the to the readers that's what I like to Jaroslav you live in America now but do you ever feel the pressure to represent the Czech Republic in any way. Well I do but it's sort of by choice my it was sort of my intention especially with this 1st book to sort of reintroduce the Czech Republic to the world as it is now because I feel like it is well known sort of from the dissidents writers and dissident filmmakers but I feel like the world might not really know what kind of a country that your republic is right now we'll speak more about the Czech Republic and your space and inviting me a bit later. On I mean I would imagine light now that as you live in Reykjavik in Iceland it's your adopted time it's your home but you're an American that you could actually speak for Iceland recently in the u.k. In a northern city you curated this huge festival of Icelandic and Nordic music you are an American doing that but what do you feel you talk to as as a citizen of the world I think I'm still very rooted in the States and my experiences growing up there you know as as many people know my story as you know that of a gay young gay boy growing up in a very strict Southern Baptist certain surroundings and so a lot of the way I view the world. Comes from that but I think you know this process of going out into the world and learning other languages as you know what it does it make it helps you to understand your own country much better course you also you also go away you also forget things and you have to go back and you have culture shock when you go back some what gives you cultures that going to give that I think you know going from for example I went from the Ukraine a small village in northern Ukraine where I was visiting a friend who you know was tied to a dialysis machine and then I go back to Christmas and Denver and it's grotesque and. But I you know I still love it. But it is very strong. Sabrina my food we are going to talk more in the 2nd part of the program but what I'd really love right now is for people to get a sense of you and your work before that so you're going to perform one of your poems for us now what is it this poetry book is written in the voice of 4 characters so this is a poem from one of the characters during a who works in a strip club it's called I Know What You Want more than my body and it's very short and it's very clean excellent. I know what you want more than my body you want me to say it's what I want to do you want me to love it so that it takes me nearer to loving you I say this is what I want to do I say I love falling in love every night as I am with you. Was so much more. Coming up in the 2nd half of the art seller at the Hay Festival in Wales we'll hear from musician and now memoirist John Grant novelist Jaroslav and there's more from poet Sabrina Masood author and musician in a motor that's all after the news. This is the b.b.c. World Service full of surprising things. Imagine a world without the face fixed the moon and. Without the clock would we have ever accurate time. Imagine shopping without a series of short black lines printed on every product without the bag how could superstores function. From robots to. The disposable razor blades to the conflict there are many things we take for granted are reaching effects. Without our knowledge and. Because. I'm Tim Harvey join me as I delve into 50 inventions ideas and innovations which have helped create the economic world we live in d.c. Things that made the modern economy listeners b.b.c. World Service dot com slash 50 things or subscribe to the broadcast coming up on this very special edition of the Arts our at the Hay literary festival in Wales with the darkly funny radically honest American singer songwriter John Brahms is not singing for us but telling us about writing his memoir Checco with a garrison of Cosa takes us into the near future with his debut novel Spaceman of the he via And we have conversation with British Egyptian poet playwright and writer Sabrina there food is all that's in the motor coming up on the arts hour in Haiti. B.b.c. News with Gerry Smit police in Britain so they've seized a huge amount of forensic material as they investigate the latest terror attack in London the city's police chief president told the b.b.c. Inquiries have been moving very fast and further arrests have been made in the east of the city more armed officers have been deployed to protect the public a new security barriers have been installed overnight on bridges in central London . A Canadian woman who was killed in the London attack has been named by media outlets in Canada as Christine Archibald Saudi Arabia Bahrain the United Arab Emirates and Egypt have all come to diplomatic ties with the Gulf state of Qatar accusing it of backing terrorism Qatar says the allegations around True but now finds itself isolated following what has been a sudden series of hostile moves by its neighbors the Russian president Vladimir Putin has told the u.s. Broadcaster n.b.c. That he didn't know about a secret communications channel Donald Trump's son in law Jared cushion or allegedly tried to set up between the tram transition team and the Kremlin a private hospital that's been treating victims of a wave of violence in the Afghan capital Kabul has warned that it will have to close its doors unless its security can be guaranteed the car will emergency hospital which is run by an Italian charity said those involved in the Afghan conflict were no longer respecting its hospital sign. Officials in Indian administered Kashmir say paramilitary forces have killed 4 gunman who attempted to attack their camp the officials said the attackers threw grenades and fired automatic weapons but were shot dead before they could get through the gates Mexico's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party has now only held on to the governorship of the country's largest state according to preliminary results the ballot in the state of Mexico was marred by attempts to intimidate voters b.b.c. News. Welcome back to a special edition of the arts hour on the b.b.c. World Service I'm Nikki Beatty and we're at the Hay literary festival in Wales on stage with me are Turkish writer. British Egyptian poet and playwright Sabrina mouth foods and Marley in French superstar musician. Also with me and we'll talk about his debut novel Spaceman of Bohemia in a little while Czech novelist Jaroslav Kull far and we have the hugely acclaimed American musician and singer songwriter John Grant and it's your turn Joan. For the uninitiated Joan writes the most mordant brilliant darkly devastating and funny songs he's collaborated from everyone from Elton John Kylie Minogue and Sinead O'Connor to Robbie Williams Amanda Palmer and the b.b.c. Fellow monic he's now writing an autobiography or is it a memoir to be discussed Joan recently described himself as a lower middle class homo sexual humanoid male musician addict chronically depressed language enthusiastic Nunda Richie both who in spite of himself is lending to enjoy life make sense of relationships and become an adult I. Think that's pretty accurate. Everything that he writes underachieve my you know voice in your lyrics John you've been always extremely honest about your personal life struggles in the past coming to terms with being a gay man your addictions self destructive periods your health but does writing music about the past help you comes to term comes to terms with it. I think it's sort of a difficult tightrope walk you sort of you don't want to be pulled back into the past you want to learn from it and move on. I definitely don't want to live in the past but I do find it I find that when I perform those songs that have to because as an artist you are you're dealing with moments and you are expressing your very unique perspective as a human being as one out of 6000000000 human beings having a unique experience on this planet which is no more or less important than any other experience. So I do think it's important to tell your own story at least it's important for me to tell my own story but I don't think I think it's important for me to do that I don't think it's necessarily important for other people you know but. I do find that you know when you when you talk honestly about your what you've been through and and. How you've lived your life you attract all sorts of interesting people who have all sorts of interesting things to say to you that help you learn to move past those things and and you think in some way the moral honest people are. The more than likely to give other people that the mission to be honest is that a responsibility I think it is I think it is I think you know we do live in a world right now we're often quite were censored by different groups where we're not you know this whole political correctness thing definitely it's something that I struggle with but when it comes to my songs I feel like you have to throw everything out the window and express the truth of a moment no matter how ugly or unpopular that opinion might be because it's the truth of that moment but it's not necessarily the greater truth of your entire being or your whole You've already said how you feel about being honest you know if you do something in a song it can be dry and raw and we see in quite funny. How do you think writing a memoir is going to compare is going to be a very different process of writing I don't know I just at the very beginning of it and I don't imagine for myself that it will be any different than what I do in song although I do think that. It's difficult to figure out what kind of perspective you want to look at things from because there are tons of different there's a multitude of angles that you can look at things from you know and I don't want to I want to talk about I want to do something very positive I want to talk about pain and and struggle and coming to terms with oneself and you know make becoming transitioning into adulthood but I want to do it you know with I think I want to talk about the passion of language in music which has been a thread all the way throughout those things because I don't want to go back and point my finger at people you know I mean I had a difficult relationship with my mother you know my mother told me that she was disappointed in me you know right before she died of lung cancer because I was a homosexual man and that was something that's something that's you know in the moment is quite difficult to deal with but the whole of the really that doesn't represent the whole of the relationship you know she was a she was a very sweet kind hearted amazing woman who because of her environment and the surroundings she grew up in had a very difficult time dealing with that and to do that I think. Absolutely so do you feel the need to protect people when you write this I mean obviously if your mother's passed away you could you could what you wanted but will you explain this . But will you be protecting people who were alive as you thought about things like that. It's interesting I don't I don't necessarily feel the need to protect people but I do feel the need to be fair I think you can tell the truth and be fair not just go you. Know because most of the time when you're doing that to somebody else that has nothing to do with them at all you know when I talk about the break up when I talk about the person that I broke my heart on which is the way I like to describe it now it's really has it could have been it could have been anybody really because it opened up what it did was it opened up. It tore the scab off of things that I was dealing with and when you're pointing at them because in songs I'm very honest about saying you know you're a moron you're an idiot but I'm quite it's quite clear to me that that is much more revealing about who I am than it is about the person that you are supposed to be talking about you know so in terms of living in Reykjavik and I don't know how many people listening will have ever visited Iceland but the vistas the epic nys of what's around you must be extraordinary extraordinarily inspiring We are taking the all sound told to Reykjavik you can hear that in 2 weeks' time that's exciting Yes isn't it John's taking his out to dinner with me really is now. I mean my pleasure have you have you become Will collaborative being in a city like Reykjavik in terms of music because there are only 300000 people who live in Iceland so Reykjavik must be smaller and there's an extraordinary amount of music that comes out of that yeah it's really incredible it's like. Well it is it's a very very strange place that I feel very I feel very. I really like the people I like the way they are and I was asked to perform there and I went there and performed there and of course I fell in love with the country on the in the bus on the way from the airport into Reykjavik and hearing the language and as you've as we've talked about you know I'm you know very very. In love with linguistics and language and learning other languages and grammars I'm a grammar nerd I love grammar because I think you know even though you need the practical everyday language grammar is what gives you the tools to actually express your specific personality your humor and to be able to play with the language that's what you need to do that and so I got excited about those things before I even you know got into town from the airport and decided that I was going to move there and then. I did that 3 months later I was there and living there and you know I didn't have a permit and I just thought well I'll figure that out later and and I did. But what was the question you know like well we could ask you now as well and then life would be cold you know I have a I have a working title which is. The most the most horrifying trait of British love that and we love. That. You're listening to a very special arts hour on the b.b.c. World Service with me Nicky Beatty we're at the Hay Festival in Wales a global gathering of writers think is readers funny people clever people people who come to ideate a word I learnt from one of my Indian family members recently and just thought it was the usual you know wrong use of something or an invention of a word it's not actually the right worth of people who exchange thoughts and ideas it's the process of it so we're ideating Sabrina my food is a poet playwright an editor and homework includes the award winning play chef and the anthology the things I would tell you which is a collection of stories written by British Muslim women which we've actually featured on the Arts our in the past so women's voices and their stories are often at the heart of your work Sabrina and that's certainly the case with your new collection of poetry how you might know me which explores the lives of 4 women who work in different parts of the u.k. Sex industry we heard one of your posts in the collection in the 1st half of the show so we meet Sylvia Sharifa Valley and arena all with very different viewpoints of the work they do where did you get the idea from. Well it was a few years in the making really I worked in strip clubs myself throughout university and kind of finding lots of different observations that were fascinating in an inferior a ng as time went on and then as I started writing poetry I started doing much opposite women who were working in different areas of the sex industry and particularly in street based prostitution in south London and so the women that I would work with write with would tell me stories and then I'd tell them stories and I made some stories up but then didn't have a number of visualizations because it went all the way to almost becoming a television show and then theatre and then it finally became totally did it yeah so yeah it was a t.v. Show is going to be a t.v. Show a trauma or. Comedy drama Oh right yeah exactly so that's why I didn't become a series because they were going you can make comedy about this stuff but you can and I would have women in the book are really funny because I think he mark is you know it's a survival tool and to eradicate people's humor from these kind of situations is is actually an injustice to the expansiveness of the characters that exist in the world so the current collection of writing by British Muslim women the things I would tell you you edited that your poetry is also within the collection isn't it I've got a play in there is a mini play a short play Yeah how did that come about how did you begin the editing process. Oh I do a lot of workshops at schools around the country a lot of the schools are predominantly Muslim heritage girls and they kept asking me I would show them You Tube videos of young poets that I know who are of Muslim heritage and play them those videos and then they would write their own power. After that and I get asked me for most a gesture and I just start thinking there isn't one place where I could put them to so I thought I should create that one place so young people were the instigator is really but it's ended up not being a book for young people really it's quite adult but. They can still read it I also heard that you're working on an opera not only is it an opera but it's an adaptation of the incredible Egyptian doctor and writer now while El Saadawi snuffle woman point 0 and I don't know how many people read this book it's a very short Eliphaz nodding here it's the last days of a woman's was the last days is the last hours of her life in a prison cell before she's about to be killed how powerful Did you find that. Remained with me I read it years ago and into translation. So this is going to be an offer and your adapting it is this right that is right yeah massive on our Obviously having grown up with a new was writing throughout my life as well yes there is the production with the opera house and ship back which is a Arts Festival in London and opera and with Bushra all Turk a composer and Maria coroplast a choreographer and we're working in a really strange way it's a lot of improvise ation a lot of just in the room together and seeing what comes out and yeah it's quite harrowing material actually but with trying now to really find the lighter bits of it and more empowering parts of it and try to bring those out but I'll be out next year that sounds like something you do rather well bringing the empowering out of things that otherwise are a little bit harrowing or achy Severino mafias thank you so much let me take you to the not too distant future now it's 2018 and a mysterious cloud has. The period between Earth and Venus a check astrophysicist is sent to investigate and whilst all alone in deep space he's forced to consider his life his marriage the state of his country and he befriends a giant alien spider with a passion for a particular brand of chocolaty hazelnuts right. This is the premise of check writer Jaroslav cult debut novel Spaceman though he may it's a wonderful mixture of human contemplation historical reflection poignant relationship observations and the minutiae of cleaning your teeth the phones of ablation and eating in space and I loved it yes love you were born and raised in Prague and as we heard earlier you immigrated to America at the age of 15 you didn't speak much English you end up graduating University with honors in all sorts of ways and you wrote spaceman to be he Mia in English what made you think of the idea for this novel. So initially this novel was a short story about an American astronaut who sort of while he was stranded in orbit receives a call from his wife asking for a divorce. And I don't know what they will find that's so sad. And I wrote it for I wrote a short story for 2 reasons 1st I was fascinated by loneliness and how it sort of works for each for each person differently some people embrace it some people love it some people can't stand it for a day and so I sort of wanted to find a place where I could isolate this character as much as possible not only from the people that he knows but from the earthly comforts of gravity oxygen. And sort of given that last sort of that last kick and see how he deals with it all. And 2nd I wrote that short story because because of the sort of tendency of American novelists to write a lot about wealthy white people in New York getting a divorce and so I want to take that divorce 3 and sort of put a different twist on it how does Eva kind of check then well so I was I was very fascinated by this character and I wanted to know more about him but. The problem was I wanted my 1st book to be about the Czech Republic about the chick history and as I mentioned earlier I sort of wanted to reintroduce the Czech person the Czechs all as it is now to the world and that's when the idea sort of struck of the America of the us not being Czech so young is the astronauts and he feels that he needs to return to his father's past as a communist Informa is that it was still very present in the Czech Republic today it is the easiest way for a politician in the Czech Republic to sort of. Slander another another politician is to say they collaborated or they were in some way connected to the to the to the Communist Party so we still certainly have that conversation. The Communist Party actually still exists and has some seats in the Parliament as well so we have not moved away from that past. As far as I'd like. Yacob is the most qualified cosmic dust in Europe and although throughout the novel we get little bits of the science that's probably the wrong word to use in the 1st place but it's the previously mentioned washing eating using the ball from stuff that gave a real veracity for me so what sort of research did you do in order to understand how an astronaut gets the bathroom Well it's actually extraordinary how much how many sources Neysa has on their website on their website alone about these sort of common things how does one shave and I actually didn't realize how dangerous it is if you're in a single strand of hair escapes during the sharing process can be very dangerous and a 0 gravity environment so. Apparently they get the question a lot I guess so they have a whole web page that Akita just how you go to the toilet in space. And your wife character Lenka is so fabulously drawn and I just feel like we got a sense what it is not just to be a temporary space which but to realize what was going on in that marriage when something is more new mental is the man saying I'm going up into space darling and I might never come back I mean it was great to have her perspective and we see her note talking to a therapist a bit later in the book how did you dig into her story well I was very concerned about her sort of just being a. Static character who sort of just waits for the great heroes return that's sort of a. It would have been appalling if that was the kind of story that I would have been writing so I want to link up to sort of as as you sort of chase is this a mission that he has and sort of faces his demons in space I want to linger to have her own story on earth. Sort of deal with her own isolation deal with her own loneliness and see perhaps gain some clarity in what she wants in life so for me it's really a parallel story it's not only a group story in space but it is also link a story on earth I really felt that so alone in deep space could discovers this possibly imaginary giant alien spider with a passion for chocolate spread he becomes his companion his name is 100 What was the inspiration for that what it means. Is actually a sort of a mythical figure from the Czech history who he constructed the astronomical clock in probably Prague in Prague that's wrong and there is a legend that. To to make sure he couldn't build another for another city or for another country and then entered his apartment late at night and blinded him. Poke his eyes out why did you make him a spider then well so and so is a spider because when I was sort of imagining this this why curious alien creature . What I was when I was little I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house and the Czech countryside and they had spiders everywhere in the house and they just sort of they were just sort of lurking on their webs above us and they always seemed very wise to me and very sort of like they were judging us trying to make a decision about us. So that's why the sort of the image of the spider came to me right away and he is named because he asked in the book to name him after somebody very significant and curious in the chick history so to what extent is the book wrists. On the current political dynamic of the Czech Republic so the word Czechia don't feel as in the name I think they are so I think it's unacceptable and why is it unacceptable people listening might not even know that this is being put forward as the name for the Czech Republic it makes us sound like some kind of a. Retail chain store or some kind of a and. It doesn't have any kind of dignity it's sort of just I mean and there aren't any rich people I've encountered so far who like it so it was an unfortunate choice but so that makes me to our politicians and sort of what the book has to say about the current political situation. I sort of saw the space mission. As a great way to the idea of a space program as a great way to satirize what's going on in the country right now well we discover ladies and gentlemen boys and girls well like is like was the Soviet space still Who was the 1st animal to orbit the earth in sport next to launched into outer space in 1957 and Yakob comes across like a bit you will have to read the book to find out what sort of shape he is in. Yaroslav cull far thank you so much and that is all we have time for on this very special arts hour so thank you to all my other guests today I so wish we'd had another hour to discover more Ellie share Fuck John Grant in a motor and Sabrina in the food is a huge thank you to my producer Livia Skinner and to the wondrous Hay Festival for having us until next week when we're back in our London studio thank you all for listening. But these 4 we actually leave you with the fabulous you know motor is going to perform again what are you going to play it for us we're going to do what is jet of the main It means love eggs and it's a traditional song that we like to play from generation to another over to you now thank you so much thank you. Thank you. Read. That if. This is the b.b.c. World Service where we continue our look at where the young people live the Palestinian territories how the youngest population in the Middle East they were good photography videos I listened and music helped me understand more sort of the b.b.c. Isn't a day ahead it's young artists before finding out how young people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem expressed themselves culturally a young world at b.b.c. World Service don't. Today it's 1030 g.m.t. Join Kim check in at the conversation and life that consisted of prayers and preparation for the apocalypse but not much contact with the outside world I guess this week we talk about life with the district when did you sect the moves and retains they have to fund and why they finally left and life on the outside is the b.b.c. World Service the world's radio station. Is 10.