Birdsong

I'm senior producer Mia Sorrenti.

How can fiction bring us closer to the lives caught up in the aftermath of war? Today's episode is from our recent live event with Sebastian Faulks, one of Britain's best-loved novelists and author of books including Birdsong, Human Traces, Engelby, and Charlotte Gray.

Faulks joined us at Conway Hall to discuss his new novel, Farewell to Eden, a story of faith, conflict, and love set in post-war Britain and the final days of the British mandate in Palestine.

He explores the history behind the novel from the testimonies of soldiers held in the Imperial War Museum archives to his own father's experiences serving in Palestine.

And the research I did was principally with the Imperial War Museum, who have this wonderful sound archive.

It's a, just a great place, the Imperial War Museum.

When I used to go there, when I was researching Birdsong in the early '90s, uh, it, it involved, you had to go to Lambeth, and you'd go up, and you'd go to this reading room under a dome.

And you'd, uh, had to sign a docket saying, "I want collections re- relating to trench foot on the Western Front in 1917." And then they would bring you literally a card index, a great long wooden box with little cards, and you'd pull them out, and it says, "Smith, Jones, Bloggs," blah.