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On this episode of World Book Club Harriett Gilbert talks with nobel Laureate Abdulrzak Gurnah about his hauntingly beautiful novel ‘Paradise’ It tells the story of Yusuf, a 12 year-old boy living in East Africa at the beginning of the 20th century. Sold off to settle his father’s debts, Yusaf embarks on a journey across the African continent. Through his naive and innocent eyes, the journey starts out as an adventure, but every wonderous thing Yusuf sees, every glimpse of paradise, is polluted by violence, the growing influence of colonialism, and the looming spectre of the First World War. This is a stunning novel - a multi-faceted, vivid exploration of the shifting culture of Africa at the turn of the century. It’s layered with mythology, Biblical and Koranic symbolism, and an unflinching insight into the effects of colonialism. Abdulrazak will be answering our listeners' questions here on World Book Club.

Harriett Gilbert talks with Michelle De Kretser about her 8th novel, and winner the 2023 Rathbones Folio Fiction Prize 'Scary Monsters'. This diptych novel consists of the tale of two immigrants, one in the past, and one in a dystopian future that seems all too possible. Which story to start with? That’s the reader’s decision. In the past, Lili. Her family migrated to Australia from Asia when she was a child. Now, in the 1980s, she teaches in Montpellier, in the south of . Her life revolves around her desires to carve out a space for herself in ‘le centre historique’, and become a great woman like Simone de Beauvoir. She tries to make friends, observes the treatment of other immigrants to who don’t have the shield of an Australian port, and continually has to dodge her creepy downstairs neighbour, as stories of serial killers dominate news headlines. In the future, Lyle works for a government department in near-future Australia where Islam has been banned, a pandemic has only recently ed, and the elderly are encouraged to take advantage of ‘The Amendment’ - a law that allows, if not encourages, assisted suicide. An Asian migrant, Lyle is terrified of repatriation and spends all his energy on embracing 'Australian values' - which in this future involve rampant consumerism, an obsession with the real estate market, and never mentioning the environmental catastrophe even as wildfires choke the air with a permanent smoke cloud. He's also preoccupied by his callously ambitious wife, his rebellious children and his elderly mother who refuses to capitulate to his desperate desire to invisibly blend in with society. We love it, not just because of the playful dual structure, but because Michelle’s writing tackles the monsters - racism, misogyny, ageism - with keen observations and biting humour, shining a light not just on how society treats newcomers, but how we relate to our idea of our shared history, and what kind of future will be built from the world we live in now.

Harriett Gilbert is ed by one of the boldest writers of her generation, Ottessa Moshfegh, to delve into her second novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation. This twisted Sleeping Beauty story is told from the perspective of an unnamed protagonist, a twentysomething art school graduate who, after the death of her parents, quits her gallery job to heal her pain by drugging herself into a year-long hibernation. Her only ties to the waking world are the bodega which she routinely slouches to for coffee, the most unscrupulous psychiatrist in New York, and her best friend, and object of contempt, Reva. We love this book because it’s a hypnotic, wickedly humorous character study of a woman who is broken, toxic, yet utterly fascinating. Even if you don’t take her to your heart, this character will linger in your mind every time you have a long lie in bed. Image: Ottessa Moshfegh (Credit: Jake Belcher)

Novelist Meg Rosoff s Harriett Gilbert to answer listeners' questions about one of her best-loved novels, How I Live Now. It is the story of Daisy, an American teenager shipped off to live with her aunt and cousins in England. What is at first an idyllic escape into English countryside life is shattered at the onset of War, when England is suddenly occupied by an unknown enemy. Daisy finds herself struggling to survive and keep her new family safe as they face violence, fear and starvation, while at the same time experiencing her first love, with her own cousin - Edmond. Beautiful, brutal, and laced with Daisy’s razor-sharp, jaded teenage humour, this is a book that brings readers into a world that feels incredibly, terrifyingly real, and will likely stay in your memory for years to come. (Photo: Meg Rosoff. Credit: Glora Hamlyn/Penguin Books)

World Book Café heads to Oslo to Europe’s largest Literature House to find out if Norway is the best place in the world to be a writer? Octavia Bright is ed to discuss the highs and lows by the internationally bestselling novelist and climate activist Maja Lunde. Johan Harstad prize winning novelist and the first in-house writer at the National Theatre in Oslo, Gunnhild Oyehaug whose witty and experimental short stories and novels have won her fans around the world and Oliver Lovrenski whose first book was an instant bestseller when it was published in Norway in 2023, when he was just 19. With generous grants for writers to live and work the Norwegian government also buys 1,000 copies of every book published to give to local libraries across the country. The organisation NORLA (Norwegian Literature Abroad) is funded by the ministry of culture and, since 2004, it has contributed to the translation of more than 8,000 books into no less than 73 languages. For a country of 5.5 million people Norwegian literature punches above its weight. However with much of the country’s wealth coming from the oil industry do environmental concerns tarnish this utopia for its writers? Producer: Kirsten Locke

A special programme from the largest public literature house in Europe, Litteraturhuset in Oslo. Harriett Gilbert is ed by one of Scandinavia’s most successful crime writers, Anne Holt. The book, 1,222, is a tense, twisty story set, during a snowstorm, in an isolated mountain hotel, a reference to the fact that the hotel is one thousand, two hundred and twenty-two metres above sea level. It features her series detective Hanne Wilhelmsen, no longer in the police force due to being paralysed by a bullet that hit her in the back. Murder, intrigue and a lot of snow pulls her back into what she does best.

The Scottish-American writer Douglas Stuart talks about his Booker Prize winning Shuggie Bain. The powerful, heartbreaking story of a young boy's love for his addict mother, and a mother's chaotic love for her son. Photo credit: Martyn Pickersgill

Ahead of its 20th anniversary early next year, the author Kate Mosse talks to Harriett Gilbert and readers from around the world, about her globally bestselling novel, Labyrinth. It’s a historical thriller set between medieval and contemporary where the lives of two women, living centuries apart, are linked in a common destiny. In 13th century Carcassonne, seventeen-year-old Alaïs is given a mysterious book by her father which he claims contains the secret of the Grail. While 700 years later, archaeologist Dr Alice Tanner discovers two skeletons in a forgotten cave in the French Pyrenees and sets out to investigate their origin.

In this month’s edition of BBC World Book Club bestselling American writer Elif Batuman discusses her acclaimed debut novel. ‘The Idiot’ follows Selin, a Turkish-American fresher at Harvard in the mid-1990s, delving into her experiences as she navigates the challenges of university life, grappling with identity, language, and the complexities of relationships, romantic and otherwise. Selin becomes infatuated with Ivan, an older Hungarian mathematics student, and their relationship unfolds primarily through a series of cryptic emails, highlighting the difficulties of virtual communication across cultures. As Selin travels to Europe for a summer teaching job, she continues to struggle with her sense of self, her obsession with Ivan, and the meaning of her experiences. The novel captures the disorienting, often absurd nature of early adulthood, where intellectual exploration meets the messiness of real life and its chaotic emotions. Infused with dry humour and philosophical musings, The Idiot is at heart a playful meditation on the limitation of language, and the gap between theoretical knowledge and lived experience.

German author Ewald Arenz, answers readers questions about his bestselling novel Tasting Sunlight. It’s the moving story of Liss, a reclusive woman who single-handedly runs her family farm, and teenage runaway Sally who takes refuge there. As they work together, Liss and Sally form an unlikely – and nurturing – friendship.

In one of the last broadcast interviews, the acclaimed Irish author Edna O’Brien, who died aged 93 in July 2024, is in conversation with Kim Chakanetsa. In this bonus episode, shediscusses her final novel, Girl – which tells the story of a young girl in Nigeria who is captured by the Islamist group Boko Haram – the effects of lockdown and her love of writing and literature from around the world… (Recorded in 2020)

On this month's World Book Club, Harriett Gilbert will be talking to bestselling American writer Paul Auster about his acclaimed work The New York Trilogy. In three brilliant variations on the classic detective story, Auster makes the well-traversed terrain of New York City his own. Each interconnected tale exploits the elements of standard detective fiction to achieve an entirely new genre that was ground-breaking when it was published three decades ago. In each story the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes a startling investigation of identity and what it means to be human. Hear what readers made of Paul and his novel and what happened when another Paul Auster stood up to introduce himself to the Paul Auster on the stage.

Harriett Gilbert is ed by Edna O’ Brien, who will be talking about The Country Girls, her novel of adolescence in 1950s Ireland. After causing controversy when it was published four decades ago, it has now garnered a stack of international awards.

Toronto is a bustling city on Lake Ontario which is growing at an astonishing rate. Almost a third of Torontonians have arrived in the last decade and more than half were born outside of Canada. The city’s Mohawk name is , which means “the place on the water where the trees are standing". Noah Richler explores the fictional landscape of the city with four of its exciting writers from different generations and backgrounds; Catherine Hernandez, Adrianna Chartrand, Don Gillmor and Deepa Rajagopalan who all him in front of a lively audience at The House of Anansi Bookshop.

Kevin Kwan discusses his internationally best-selling novel, Crazy Rich Asians, with readers from around the world. Chinese-American academic Rachel Chu lives a modest and happy life with her boyfriend and fellow academic Nick. But when Nick invites her home to Singapore to meet the family, everything changes – starting with the first class flights. Saturated with wildly wealthy and deliciously dysfunctional super-elites, this ironic and funny rom-com makes a perfect escapist summer read.

In Miriam Toews’s novel, Women Talking, the women of a remote Mennonite colony are hold secret meetings to talk about the crimes of the men who they live alongside. After years of being told that they were suffering from hysterical delusions, the women “came to understand that they were collectively dreaming one dream, and that it wasn’t a dream at all.” Women Talking is a response to the real life events on a Mennonite settlement in Bolivia between 2005 and 2009. Miriam Toews talks to World Book Club readers in Toronto and around the world about her unique and powerful story about the power of language and solidarity.

Percival Everett will be discussing his Booker-shortlisted novel The Trees. This powerful and fiercely funny satire centring on revenge and racial justice in America shifts genres between police procedural, magical realism and horror with wit and consummate skill. Percival Everett addresses some of America’s darkest history with an unusual mix of playfulness and political seriousness.

Award-winning Australian novelist Charlotte Wood s Harriett Gilbert to answer questions from readers around the world about her novel, The Weekend. It's a story of grief and friendship; three women meet to clear their deceased friend’s beach house and find themselves uncovering secrets and stirring up memories. (Image: Charlotte Wood. Photo credit: Carly Earl.)

Multi award-winning novelist Ann Patchett will be discussing The Dutch House. A dark modern fairytale set against the very real world of post-WWII Philadelphia, tracing the love between a brother and sister, their vanishing mother, distant father and jealous stepmother. Ann Patchett tells the story of a family over five decades with a finely balanced mixture of wit and heartbreak. (Image: Ann Patchett. Photo credit: Emily Dorio.)

World Book Café heads to Madrid to talk to writers about a new boom in feminist fiction. A few month after the resignation of President of the Spanish Football Federation over a non-consensual kiss of footballer Jenni Hermoso at the World Cup final, World Book Café investigates how Madrid’s women writers are challenging gender roles in the books world.