As their nation starts a new chapter with the inauguration of President Joe Biden, we hear from the novelists Michael Farris Smith and Zaina Arafat on writing the American story at a time of national crisis.

Monique Roffey is one of Trinidad’s most celebrated writers. This month she won a Costa award for her new novel The Mermaid of Black Conch: A Love Story. Monique shares the story of how William Golding’s novel, The Inheritors shaped her life and her love of literature

This week, Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny was detained by state authorities as he returned to Moscow after nearly being killed by a nerve agent attack. The writer Sergei Lebedev discusses how he reflects political truths in his new novel Untraceable, a story about physical, moral and political poisons in Putin’s Russia.

Plus literary journalist Amy Brady explains why the increasingly popular genre Cli-Fi or climate fiction is bringing the issues of climate change and environmental damage to readers through novels.

Presented by Nawal al-Maghafi

(Photo: Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th President of the United States in Washington, DC. Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)