Dramatisations and short stories by the award-winning playwright - plus bonus programmesKnown as the 'Irish Chekhov', Brian Friel was one of the most renowned dramatists of his generation, producing over 30 plays in a career spanning six decades. Included here are some of his best-known works, as well as mesmerising radio documentaries featuring the author himself, in his own words.Beginning with his modern classic about language and power, Translations...

An epic full-cast dramatisation of Paul Scott’s classic series of novels charting the last days ofthe British Raj.Spanning the years from 1942 to 1947, this landmark saga explores the relationships between an array of soldiers and civilians stationedin India, as the sun sets on British colonial rule.As The Jewel in the Crown opens, World War II is at its height and Gandhi is calling for the British to leave. When Daphne Manners arrives in Mayapore,...

A thriller and love story set in 10th-century Japan.Lady Shonagon is an imperial courtesan, living at the court of the Japanese Emperor in the 10th century. When a series of disturbing thefts within the palace walls throws the court into confusion and unrest, Shonagon is appointed guide and assistant to Lieutenant Yukinari as he investigates.Together, Shonagon and Yukinari must solve the mysteries and escalating crimes that plague the Japanese court, and their romance bloss...

‘I saw the strangest sight tonight.’New Bohemia. America. A storm. A black man finds a white baby abandoned in the night. He gathers her up – light as a star – and decides to take her home.London. England. After the financial crash. Leo Kaiser knows how to make money but he doesn’t know how to manage the jealousy he feels towards his best friend and his wife. Is his newborn baby even his?New Bohemia. 17 years later. A boy and a gi...

‘Who is this guy, Dad? What is he doing here?’With an absent wife and a daughter going off the rails, wealthy art collector and philanthropist Simon Strulovitch is in need of someone to talk to. So when he meets Shylock at a cemetery in Cheshire’s Golden Triangle, he invites him back to his house. It’s the beginning of a remarkable friendship.Elsewhere in the Golden Triangle, the rich, manipulative Plurabelle (aka Anna Livia Plurabelle Cleopatra A Thing of Beauty i...

‘It’s got a thunderstorm in it. And revenge. Definitely revenge.’Felix is at the top of his game as Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. His productions have amazed and confounded. Now he’s staging a Tempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, it will heal emotional wounds.Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daug...

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015Meet U. – a talented and uneasy figure currently pimping his skills to an elite consultancy in contemporary London. His employers advise everyone from big businesses to governments, and, to this end, expect their 'corporate anthropologist' to help decode and manipulate the world around them – all the more so now that a giant, epoch-defining project is in the offing.Instead, U. spends his days procrastinating, meander...

At a family wedding Mevlut catches sight of a girl with whom he falls in love. After a secret courtship of letters passed via his cousin, she agrees to elope with him, and on a dark night the two come together for the first time. As they rush to catch a train to Istanbul, Mevlut realises he has been misled. But the die is cast, and the situation will determine the rest of his days. Over the next four decades in Istanbul, Mevlut works various jobs to support his loving wife and family; work...

In May 1937, a man in his early thirties waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the ‘Big House.’ Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now, and few who are taken to ever return.

**WINNER OF THE 2026 PULITZER PRIZE FOR OPINION WRITINGWINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTIONWINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD**The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a more virulent and invincible new strain of autocracy.Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces t...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2016Plunge into this hypnotic tale of female sexuality and power - from the Man Booker shortlisted author of Swimming HomePenguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Hot Milk by Deborah Levy, read by Romola Garai.Two women arrive in a village on the Spanish coast. Rose is suffering from a strange ill...

From the best-selling author of Pulitzer finalist What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Dinner at the Centre of the Earth is a spellbinding thriller, a spy novel and a love story, showcasing Englander's gifts as never before.Prisoner Z, held at a black site in the Negev desert for a dozen years has only his guard for company. How does a nice American Jewish boy from Long Island wind up an Israeli spy working for Mossad, and later, a traitor to his adop...