The genesis of Akunwe as a character is fascinating you found a bill of sale in the archives in Durham. Slavery is now at this point in time has ended in well in the British Empire but it hasn't extended all the way out to the rest of the world so it is still legal in Sudan during pre-British colonial time. Yes so after all these years of the transatlantic slavery Britain did a kind of U-turn and began to sort of launch an attack against countries which still practice slavery. And I knew that Zam Zam was her slave name and that she must have had another name before she was she was enslaved and so I developed the character from that.
The writer Sarah Bakewell explores the long tradition of humanist thought in her latest book, Humanly Possible. She celebrates the writers, thinkers, artists and scientists over the last 700 years who have placed humanity at the centre, while defying the forces of religion, fanatics, mystics and tyrants.
But placing humans at the centre isn’t without problems – critics point to its anthropocentric nature and excessive rationalism and individualism, as well its Euro-centric history. The philosopher Julian Baggini guides the listener in unpicking the tenets of humanism. His latest books is How to Think Like a Philosopher: Essential Principles for Clearer Thinking.
Humanism may have relegated the divine to the side lines, but for the characters in Leila Aboulela’s novels faith and devotion are integral to their sense of themselves. In her latest book, River Spirit, set in Sudan in the 1880s, her young protagonists struggle to survive and find love amidst the bloody struggle for Sudan itself.
Producer: Katy Hickman