The Art of Fiction, Democracy & Truth with AL KENNEDY

About this episode

AL Kennedy discusses the intersection of fiction, democracy, and truth in an increasingly authoritarian world.

What happens when the state infiltrates your most intimate relationships? How do we protect the innocence and imagination of children in an increasingly authoritarian world? “"If you have love, eventually you're going to win. It's not that people aren't going to die. It's not terrible things aren't going to happen. But if you stay with that and you stay centered in that, you'll get through and you will not have turned into a monster in order to overcome monsters.” My guest today is AL Kennedy . She is one of Britain’s most acclaimed and versatile literary voices, a writer who can inhabit the internal life of a soldier in a POW camp, as she did in her Costa Book Award-winning novel Day , as easily as she can navigate the "professional lying" of a modern civil servant. Her latest novel, Alive in the Merciful Country , takes place during the 2020 lockdown. It tells the story of a primary school teacher who receives a confession from an undercover police officer who infiltrated her life decades earlier. It’s a provocative investigation into state power, the "Spy Cops" scandal and the search for mercy in an age of surveillance. It’s a book about the breakdown of trust. We talk about…

People in this episode

Guest: AL Kennedy

Topics covered

• fiction
• democracy
• truth
• authoritarianism
• state power
• activism

Keywords

• fiction
• democracy
• truth
• authoritarianism
• state power
• activism
• surveillance
• trust

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Spy Cops

Books & works: Day, Alive in the Merciful Country

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