now as the peninsula was returning to quote its native hall, the russians assess and the residents of crime in may bet choice at the kremlin box referendum in 2014, it was ridiculous edition was russia definitely. and the important point, some from historical perspective, well in russia will love history, of course. so russian been fights and for come, you were stork, you do in this historical times for 300 years. so it to mean to so historical, right? the construction of the college branch, which connected the printer with mainland russia, was a physical representation of the renewed toys on the 10th anniversary of the region, if occasion a huge cause that took place in bed square, letting the patient appear that the bend accompanied by his 3 rivals and the presidential elections also unleashing unarmed conflicts in 2022, russia slicing for more ukrainian territory, circumstance and the toys to start us as renewal garcia as for gone back. so the people living there also declared their desire to return to their family. in the

days of the russian spring, their journey home turned out to be much more difficult and tragic. but still we did it. and this is also a big event in the history of our state to 10 years on and crime, it hasn't fully integrated into russia. not least because of the western sanctions . independent sources report the salaries of crime in residents, a 20 to 30 percent less than the national average in russia. latino refusing to initially promise that 3 languages, russian, ukrainian, and crime in time would have equal status. but in praxis, people are discouraged to speak, ukrainian, something that may lead to grow and discontent. and most of those voices, bios sorceries. you nash bob, oliver ultra 0, most k u. n. back textbooks have rule, the death of 22 must have a meaning and the custody of a runs circles. morality police was little and caused by violence. the fact finding

mission says more than 550 people were killed. as a result of the government's crime, donald protests in response to i mean these decks in 2022 that figured it includes $68.00 children that runs high cost of a human rights has dismissed the report. so that's it for me. you can find more information features analysis on our website. so that's, i'll just say with dot com. companies continues with don jordan comes off the top. the why have american evangelicals become? is real strong. this background is us president joe, find the right to stand with israel with no red line as long as us support continues. is there anything that can stop is real simple on concept from going on

in? definitely a quizzical look at us politics. the bottom line, the inverse and pros, literature reveals how societies grow and learn each air and struggle. it's unique flights from adult pages to the age of enlightenment was an peace love and hate and the rise and full of implies, it's all cap. should firefighters imagination to book surprises. one of the most prestigious literary awards, it's been given out every year since 1969 to the best original novel written in the english language and published in the united kingdom for ireland. the prize highlights exceptional history looks and has a significant impact on industry world influencing trends and shaping contemporary discussions. on this episode of 12 ounces era,

we speak to the recently in the irish novelist, poland, his winning book, profit song, tells the fictional story of the mother of full as she tries to protect her family was a government tons, increasingly to tell us harry. and while the story takes place and on and it power those, any conflict around the world, lynch says he wanted to show west and indifference to those offices that have in fall from view, like the war in syria and make is we just feel what it's like to live on the, to any one of the judges called his novel a trial of emotional story telling. this week we delve into the global the true wealth and examined the role of literature was playing and shaping all societies. booker prize winner college talks to out the coolant. welcome, and thank you for talking to alex, is there as well? congratulations on a very well does of when of the booker prize profit? so what can i say?

wow, it went to me away. i read it over 2 days and i don't think it's, it's funny. let me go. yes. my 1st question to you is what major voice it. i am you know when, when you choose, you don't choose a book or at the book choose is you. and i was, i came to this novel at a time in 2018 where i suppose you could say there was a lot of, there was a lot of change in the world. and certainly here in the west and i had just read, we read step and both by herman has that. and that book was interesting because i read, i read it in my twenties and you know, in the late ninety's when, when with a was, was i certainly life in europe was very sedate. it seems. and i remember it was a passage in that book or how are you holler? who's the novel 0 sort of was looking as a germany in 1927. and he was looking at the sort of political and rashed. he was looking at the xenophobia and the anti semitism,

and just that sense of on rivaling that was good that was going on and he said, didn't did that the next destruction is to the next war is inevitable. i don't remember when i read that in my twenty's through a so been amazed at what it must have been like to being alive and so at such a time. because as i said, the ninety's was what it was. but then i re read that in 2018 before i sat down to my profit. so i missed you a recognition when went up went up my spine. and i, i remember just thinking, this is, this is now, this feels like the now, or at least there are aspects that of the now that, that are here with us that weren't with us, you know, 20 years ago. and that's the thing. first of all about re reading great fiction is that you never the same reader twice, but also you can sort of measure the time that you and you can measure how things have changed. and so i, you know, that's, that's what i was thinking. then at the time there was, there was, trump was in power and we had breakfasted, and there was this, there had been

a search to the right, you know, in your up. and we'd have to can the implosion of syria and the refugee crisis. and all of these things were just sort of pressing and on on the fiction. and i know, you know, i'm not, i'm not a political novelist. i think it's a dangerous thing to, to take on this to sort of step start writing with an agenda. but the stuff was pressing in it was of leaking through into the text from underneath. and you may say it's a dangerous thing to take home, but i feel like to have, i feel like this is quite a warning in here, not to take life the ground to. there's an amazing line that you use, which is really stuck with me, which is that happiness happens in the hum drum and it's almost like don't let that guy don't waste your life looking for happiness, enjoy what you have because it can be gone in an instant absolutely, and this moment is for all of these moments of just life in this moment in the,

on folding moment. and there's a reason for that. it's, it's because for each moment is a blessing thing and, and, and we do take it for granted. as you say, and, you know, i think i think of, you know, realize as a writer that, that the civilization that we live in, it's a thin veneer. and so we use the last and, you know, his life is a fragile thing and when it's gone, it's gone. you know, it's humpty dumpty. you can't, you can't put it back together again. and this is fundamentally wise book is about grief. it's you know, that, that in this book what's lost is irretrievable. and i'm slowly, but surely alias has been maneuvered in this book. she's, she's trying to grow up with these norms forces that are shaping around her and they've taken her husband. and though it seems they're taking her saw on and she's got her other children and she's trying for, she's trying to sort of sort of retain some sense of dignity, trying to keep her family together. but the forces there are at work. they are just

too great and so the novel is perhaps asking the reader, well, how are these forces the least in the 1st place, you don't? what? where do we, what, what steps do we take to get to that point in any sort of projected, or counterfactual history was, this can begin again and, and to sort of begin to pull a part of the known world that we, that we take for granted. now, especially sort of in your, with our level democracies, this is, this is, this is what some of the questions of the book is asking me. but i definitely want to talk more about an issue in a little bit because i love to as a couch when i wonder where she came from. the 1st was when i ask why you chose to set this in island other than the fact that, you know, it's a new list that because there's been some people who have said they find it really hard to reconcile this something to, to tell us harry and government in a place that's got such a strong democracy. i wonder why you didn't explain more how that came about what this government's ultimate a was. you know, if i had stated the politics,

all of the space operations in the book, then the book would have, would you be in about that particular politics. and so it would have missed the points in anybody who has, who has said, you know, what you're saying they're, they're missing the point of the novel. if you take the lead, a great book like the is and you turn it inside that. why do you left with all the heroics, the political action, the grand stage of action? all of it disappears and we are left with the characters who are the who are living through the events in the back land. you know, and he was saying, life is lived in the home drum. it's also just book is about those moments. it's about the hidden life of on recorded acts. and i think that's what the novelist judy is, is to capture. it's not the grand stage, just not politics. it's not in this book is chasing something very different. it's going after it wants to know, you know,

if it wants to know what is it like for people to live through these events, the events, the mechanism is that create these events are different in different shapes, for the outcomes are always the same. me. and i'm for aly stack, you know, i, she reaches towards the end of the novel and she's thinking about, you know, of the meaning of the end of the world. and she realized the beginning of the world is not the southern event. it's not the typical apocalypse, it's actually just it, it's an event that that knocks on your door, it comes to your city. it comes to your town and it goblets of your family and, and, and it destroys your country. but it's, it's a news event to other people and overtime it's a miss, it becomes, it becomes a rumor. and so the book is really about exploring these, this size of, of, of, of, of the events rather than the things that we already get from journalism,

of the things that, that are, that are obviously there for the taking. do you know what i mean? absolutely, and it's so true what you're saying, because there's one very key example that was a reflection of reality sunday because when i was reading it recently, it's the war on gone. so that's really coming home to me at the moment, especially with the strikes and people being forced to leave the homes. so when i read molly saying, if you want to give will, is propane named coolant and to tame and we are now tv for the rest of the world. and that actually gave me goosebumps because a very key movement from the world gone. so for me, covering it from here and though ha, was watching a man in the jabante, a refugee camp who would just have his house and his neighbors houses palms. and he's looking straight at the camera and he's screaming at them. are you watching? well, are you enjoying this movie? i wonder, do you also see these parallels now? because as you say, it could have been tested all and it could have been assessed in syria. it could

continue to be said in many places around the world. yeah. and you know what, i set an offer like this in new orleans. it's really, it's, it's, you know, i'm holding off a magic mirror. it's, it's, it's, it allows us to imagine it in a place where it would seem to be impossible. but by doing that, um, it makes it older, more real, it makes it more universal. so because if i had set it off like this and, you know, let's, let's say i had chosen to, to try and recreate syrian and novel within the book would be about the seriousness . typically, instead of the universal aspects of that, that are on folding in this book and, you know, you know, you mentioned guys, and i mean this book contains it. it has room within it for the guys in our to vegas room within it for the ukraine. i've met, i met somebody from from, from a palestinian lady yesterday. i met a ukrainian woman the day before and both of them, the things that i've managed to tell their story. and that's, it seems extraordinary to me the most in dublin here i am an irish writer creating

this, you know, a narrative that, that can somehow tap into these universal energies. and there was, there's that, there was, there was a, there was an epic or a, that's a graph that really wanted to use for this book that wants to take from call him because he's the crossing. and unfortunately, i call him because he was dying at the time and sadly passed away and we couldn't get permission on on, on, on, on the line was, was really important towards the meaning of the book. he said that the task of generator is not an easy one. he appears to be to he peers, to, to, to it appears to be the case and he must choose the story from the many that are available. but of course, that's not the case. the of the, the, the, to the, the writer most to the writer was make many of the one. when you make many of the one you're getting closer to me, if you're getting to the point where a novel can, can contain multitudes within it. and that was my goal, it was to sort of create this sort of a story that,

that even though it says in dublin that it actually contains within at the university. and, you know, it's, it's, it's, um, it's a, it's a grand and lofty goal. and i don't know if i fully managed that, but that's, that was my intention. well, you certainly did for me, and i'm sure you've done it for many other people because i think one of the big things in the book is the mundane. amid the absolute tales and say for me the details such as when i was in the car looking for his son ma, she's absolutely frantic. she's having his exit federal prices, but she can't get the interval right on the windscreen wiper. it's so but no, but it's so relate simple and it's those details that continuously come up, i think, but make it really simple to so many different people. yeah, and this was the point for me that i wanted to sorta and beds the reader of the novel completely in the home drum. you know, because the fact of the matter is, is english is, is, you know, she's a mother in her forty's, she's got, she's got

a career. she's got 3 teenage kids. she's got an infant. she's got a husband who's been disappeared and she's trying to hold her life together. she's trying to sort of manage all these competing energies as we all do in our lives. at the same time her father is ailing, he's. he's always, he's got dementia and she's like, she's so in mashed that it's easier for her to be in denial about what's going on than address what's going on. because if she has to address it fully, then she may have to start letting go. the friends and, or sister of course is in canada. i, sister on you in her sister's saying, you know, history is assigned at rack or does those did not know when to leave an extra saying, you know, that's very well for you to say, but how am i supposed to leave laurie's, you know, laurie's in prison, somewhere, you know, dad, dad is a what, what if he falls and breaks a hip? what then? and so this idea that you can just leave your life is it is you can just, you know,

to pack up your bag and close the door and leave the country. it's, you know, i want you to understand this for myself to, to, to, to leave your life. i think, to leave your life and your home is possibly the most difficult thing to do in the world. and you have to be forced to do what you have to be shown to is out of your life in the way that issues. and this is what i learned by writing the book. and that's a big question at the end. i think you give it to mona, a carrot, so who appears towards the end when she says, how much for you will to any of us have to do and the thing where we will so close up in our lives on, in all responsibilities and find us in the very beginning it was okay, practice. and it was molly competing in the junior leak that was stopping her from these things are that does as you say, it shows us just how difficult it would be to leave when perhaps so fast question might people, why didn't you just get out of that in the beginning by the end to like actually yes, it would be very difficult to resource solves. and again,

this is what we see in gaza and in the palestinians, not wanting to leave the north of golf. so that is being bottom to go south because that's interesting. but by leaving you couldn't, you can really sense that in the novel is devastating. yeah. and you know, at 3 will the exploration of the question of freewill is, it is very central to the, to this novel. and, you know, it's something i've always been interested in as a novelist is this sort of the sense that we're all living our lives. we're all searching for some sense of just, you know, off into city of a self. we're looking for dignity, and at the same time, you know, when my characters find themselves caught up in these enormous events, these, these things are just, you know, throwing them around like dos. how are they to reconcile after you know, these, these, these, these forces are shaping their lives and yet, there you are at the center of a human being with a beating heart. and you're just, you're, you know, you're trying to have some dignity and there are no easy access to this. it means

they're mean that they're not being asked through at all. but yet. yeah, it's something essential to all my novels and more that has that moment in the book where she she speaks about it and she says, you know, i used to think that i had free will. i used to think i had agency and now i realize that that was just a delusion that you know that we are just karl, always and these enormous forces that are shifting our lives. and we really have very to say about any of it. let's talk about an extra bed. i mean, she's obviously you'll central character. i think she managed to keep the most remarkable dignity in an incredible situation of a many times in the novel. but i was like, i would not be that com, polite, that collected to be official, these faceless officials that represent the states and to the forces that were bearing down even when the kids to fight. so you don't see how lose had cool. she's wonderful. she's complex, how did you create to, or i think at least just sort of came to me. i mean,

it's not that i sort of created hardy. it's interesting that, you know, i wrote the 1st page of the book in this moment where i just sat down one day after writing the romans off for 6 months. is it kind of what happens or writing something, you know, it's wrong. but the energy behind this thing that you're looking for it's, it's there, but you can just to be can find the vessel through the right story. and i sat down and i just wrote that open page very, very close to how it sits now and, and she's there in this, i think from the 2nd sentence she's, she's there until the 3rd person. and she's inhabiting that text. and i didn't go looking for her, there she was. and sometimes i think, you know, writing it's like you're, you're, you're, you're, you know, it's sculpture. you find the shape in the stone, you know, you just have to move the words and there they are. and she seems to me to be this, she's an extraordinary person, she's so complex. she so you know, she's still in the world. and in the moment, yet she has these layers of complexity with center and we're sort of delving into

her so memories of her life. her feelings were transported fire. and yet, once she has to take on what she has to deal with, what she has to confront, it's, it's, it's, it's shocking, you know, when i had to go there with her, i had to follow the logic of events and truthfully, meet those moments and not turned away and, and, and that was really important, but this book was to just be, was, are there as she's, as she's taken through this, this story and the children of course because the 3 main characters as the baby of course, but this box, that's molly. and those bailey, they all cope with the situation in very different ways. mock is action, evidence to go. i'm only withdrawal is baby hodgens. did you look at real life situations as to the psychological impact of will on children to, to gauge these reactions and the to hold on? yeah, i mean, i did, i obviously would have done

a reasonable amount of research for this book. so i can understand the impact psychologically of these kind of things. but, you know, i, i just went with this, i just, you know, i mean this, my job is a novelist is this is kind of, this is what i do. and, you know, i, you know, we're sort of natural psychologists in a way. and i, i just, i just went with each carts and i mean, you ask yourself questions like, well, you know, what does this card to want now, who are they in? what do they want and, you know, barely in particular english makes the mistake of lying to him. you know, when, when, when, when, when barriers is taken away and not returned. and there's no answer. just just the silence from the state. he's been disappeared and at least makes the mistake of, of not telling them because she thinks he's too young. he won't be able to handle it. and that's that it proves a mistake because a change has barely in a way that he may not change. and because of that, they then have this sort of, there's been a narrative between them that, that, that, that, that goes to that goes good. that takes, that takes off,

it has its own energy through the book. and mean i'm, it died i, i have 2 kids of 2 younger kids. so it was an opportunity for me to also that, that side of my life into my writing perhaps to the 1st time. and you know, like they're fighting for the remote controls that started the book said he's always there, always running a milk, you know, he's always a why we, why we got no milk and bodies complaining about this and that, and that's, that's how life is. and it seemed to me to be that is essential to convey this aspect of life within this narrative that you know that, that, that we, the home drum, it's just again bringing it back to the finality because this is what life is like . well that milk minute face to be a crucial point in the book, doesn't it? i'm just waiting to view is if you haven't read profit song yet, this next couple of questions. a spoiler a lot, but i have to ask you pool. why did bailey have to die? it was devastating. and that's a big spider. um, yes, uh, so i won't discuss how or was, or what,

but i will say that that the book has, has a momentum of truth to it. and the truth is, the most important thing that shape the book. so as i was writing, i would often have ideas, maybe, you know, sort of romantic novelist, big ideas, maybe. and these can do this. so maybe this could happen in the book, but just say no. and what i realized was that there is a, there's a sort of, it's just i see the book is a series of equations that leads to the last line. and that last line is a, is, is, is, is the q a, b, and i had to prove that last line, true, i. so there is an implacable logic. and i could not flinch from that logic. i could not look away. and that's the, you know, there's a moment that chapter where the worst happens. i couldn't write that for a while. there was a number of months where i was, the energy offered was too great for me. i was, i was really blocked. i wasn't sure how to do it and i also didn't want to confront it myself until until i felt ready to do it. and when i wrote it,

it just came out. it came out of me in a flood because because i was ready for it. i just moved on to your style, a lot of discussion about it, no power golf, new speech bounce very few full stops. it's an exhausting read. i think it's fair to say, and i also want to just bring in the fact there's almost no shima in it. except for one moments, which actually made me laugh out loud. and it was when jerry brandon is. his neighbor looks at the world trade stuff that's been featured on her call and it's perfect. it is a horrendous experience for the family. and he looks that he says, is it just me or is that not spelt right? it? it was an absolute you put in for me. but why did you know we're allowed to leave the region more levity, more moments like that? and again, the book has it just have its own implacable logic, its own rules. um, you know, i guess maybe it's because uh, you know,

the book is just so much weights into, you know, in a certain direction that, that the weighting would be wrong if there was more levity. i, i honestly don't know, but i make decisions about, you know, for example, things like they're not being paragraph breaks. these are decisions that are really important. and i think that when you are writing a book and you make you make choices to play with the form and do things that are perhaps unconventional though it's not on conventional to have no paragraph mark is not on conventional tough, no quotation marks. there are many writers who have been doing this for quite some time, but you must justified in the meaning of the story. and the justifications are, are there, you know, the reader will find themselves imprisoned in this text in the same way that it is in prison. within her reality, there's just nowhere to turn. there's no reading space and, and the ends at the same time, you know, those long sentences are a way of, of inhabiting the moment of getting down to the harpies. of, of, of it is just like what,

at the same time they create the feeling of momentum of just the paul of events. that aliases completely unmatched. and those sentences are pulling the reader along . they certainly do, and they don't let go. you just want the booker prize, you won the no shortage of prizes or prolific receiver. it's fair to say, what's next? few what should be best to be looking out for a while there won't be another novel for a for some time, cause i'm, i'm going to be busy doing booker stuff, i think for, for, for the next year or so, i'm told, but i do want to get back to work. i had started the novel and you know, i'm not even sure yet what it's fully about because, you know, it's early stage, but i, i never talk about what i'm writing, but, you know, for the moment it's just going to be book surprised. i think that's, that's my life, that's my reality. but i can't, i can't and a child complained as it should be pulled and it's been an absolute pleasure. and on a speaking to you. thank you for talking to out of there. ok. thank you so much. the

the latest news as a phrase, several philistines were killed as they were trying to get much needed food to survive with details coverage. families of captive before joined by thousands of his release as they marched from the gauze, the border to west jerusalem. from the heart of the story on my left is a mazda has been to the police, los and the news believe they have no place to work everywhere is nowhere to stay in the gaza strip as is there, as long, lots continues. there's a deliberate mission of posting in humanity, in western media, and it needs to be questioned, sustains coverage that actively humanize as, as readings and actively humanizes palestinians. this is not the time for doing this kind of weight. tracking those stories examining the journalism and the effect

that news coverage can have on democracies everywhere. here at the listing the best african narrative from africans perspective for symptom of 4 states and to show documentary spine african filmmakers coordinated to like, he has said this to bring me chocolate revolution from booking of 5. and i see beauty from synagogue, africa direct on. i'll just be around reporting for the action of thousands of on that great. when i'm hearing the fact palestinian or arabic content has been removed or restricted understanding the reality for these demonstrators. if president lucky, self reckoning the stability of the country, i'll just say it was teens across the world. when you click sense to the fonts at

the store, the of the israel launch is a major assault on what was once, because that's the biggest hospital saying it killed several members of commerce in the account. the other ones are in jordan, this is all just they are alive from dell. so coming up a warning, the next step is to minutes in gaza. spots of the strip face extreme food shortages, politicians and gambia left to overturn a lot more fine on female genital mutilation projects, millions of goals.