A Reading Life, A Writing Life, with Sally Bayley The Devil Lives Among Us
In this episode, released on the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, Sally reads the works of great Ukrainian writers and poets of previous generations. Her thoughts turn to the novelist Joseph Conrad, who was born in a region which is now part of Ukraine. She reads passages from his masterpiece, Lord Jim, about the tangible presence of evil in the world. In a lighter vein, she reads an extract from her own fictional essay about the joys and freedoms of walking.
Further Reading
Sally’s fictional essay - on the theme of a childhood walk - is called ‘A Curvy Road is Better Than a Straight One.’ It was published in Where My Feet Fall, edited by Duncan Minshull, in March 2022, published by HarperCollins.
https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Duncan-Minshull/Where-My-Feet-Fall--Going-for-a-Walk-in-Twenty-Stories/25944755
It can also be read here:
Taras Shevchenko (1814 –1861) was a poet, writer, artist, and intellectual, who advocated Ukrainian independence at a time when the Tsarist Russian Empire directly ruled the country. His works are considered to be the main foundation of modern Ukrainian literature, giving a dignity and literary heritage to the Ukrainian language. He also wrote in Russian (nine novellas, a diary, and an autobiography).
Shevchenko was convicted in 1847 of explicitly promoting the independence of Ukraine, writing poems in the Ukrainian language and ridiculing members of the Russian Imperial House.
Marie Bashkirtseff (1858 to 1884) was born into a Russian family near Poltava, in a region which is now in Ukraine, She moved to Paris to become an artist, creating a sizeable body of work in her short lifetime ,as well as becoming known as an intellectual. Her diary was posthumously published in 1887, only the second diary by a woman published in France to that date. It recounts her life, work and her relentless struggle with the tuberculosis which eventually killed her, aged 25. She wrote: "If I do not die young, I hope to live as great artist; but if I die young, I intend to have my journal, which cannot fail to be interesting, published." The diary made her famous in literary circles, being rapidly translated into English too, and has often been used as a model by other diarists, including Katherine Mansfield and Anais Nin.
Joseph Conrad was born in 1857 in Berdychiv, which was then part of the Russian Empire but is now in Ukraine. He was Polish in ethnicity; although the vast majority of the surrounding area's inhabitants were Ukrainians, almost all the countryside was owned by the Polish nobility. Conrad spent nearly 20 years of his life working as a sailor with the British and French merchant navies while nurturing ambitions to become a writer. Remarkably, he wrote some of the finest novels in the English language despite only becoming fluent in the language in his twenties.
Conrad published Lord Jim as a serial from October 1899 to November 1900. Its central character is a sailor who lives in disgrace and travels the world seeking redemption. The novel deals with existentialist themes, personal responsibility in an uncaring, cruel universe, and the nature of good and evil. Nostromo, a story of imperialist exploitation and revolt in South America, was published, again in instalments, in 1904.
The producer of the podcast is Andrew Smith: https://www.fleetingyearfilms.com
The extra voice in this episode is Emma Fielding.
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