Review of Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun, Adrian Younge - The American Negro, Springtime in poetry

Kazuo Ishiguro has just published his eighth novel, the first to be written since he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017 and was knighted. Klara and the Sun is about an Artificial Friend, a robot whose role is to be a companion to the teenage Josie, though it becomes apparent that more may be expected of Klara. With resonances of two of his previous novels Never Let Me Go and of The Remains of the Day, it is a much-anticipated addition to Ishiguro’s body of work. Sameer Rahim, books editor at Prospect magazine, joins us to review.

The kind of systemic violence that led to the death of George Floyd is the concern of the composer and producer Adrian Younge in The American Negro, his multimedia project for Black History Month in the US. It comprises an album of music and spoken word, a four part podcast series, Invisible Blackness, and a short film. Live from Los Angeles Adrian Younge talks to us about this ambitious and unapologetic critique of the malevolent psychology that afflicts people of colour in America today.

Poet Alison Brackenbury considers poetic responses to the arrival of Spring, from the familiar to the over-familiiar.

And our occasional series dedicated to Moments of Joy continues with games writer Jordan Erica Webber, who finds peace and happiness at the end of the universe in the game Outer Wilds.

Presenter : Tom Sutcliffe Producer : Simon Richardson

Main image: Sir Kazuo Ishiguro Image credit: Howard Sooley