The Essay

Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers. This essay looks at Amiri Baraka previously known as LeRoi Jones. He was seen as a genuine heir to James Baldwin. A decade younger than Baldwin, Jones/Baraka arrived in Greenwich Village just as the Beat scene was reaching its zenith. He wrote poetry and award-winning off-Broadway plays that dealt with race with the greater fire and frankness the 60s demanded. Then in one public appearance, he cancelled himself with comments about the Jewish young men Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, who were murdered with James Chaney in Mississippi. The story of a career ruined and a notorious evening that split the liberal coalition in New York, a fracture that continues to this day.

The 1960s are celebrated for the paradigm shift in American society. This shift was reflected in art and culture as well as politics. But these great changes were not accomplished without controversy. Even in the most slow-flowing art form, literature, great controversies burst out that are now forgotten, but they anticipate what is going on with today's cancel culture. They occurred without the multiplier effect of social media but dominated not just book pages but the society at large. Michael Goldfarb looks at five authors and their books on the receiving end of this cancel culture in liberal America of the 1960s. Each author and the work being discussed was the subject of a controversy that altered their lives and deeply affected their careers. In this essay, he focuses on William Styron and his book 'The Confessions of Nat Turner' and asks can a white man write about a black revolutionary hero? Is this taking cultural appropriation too far? Styron was a southerner writing about an important event in

Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region. Roy McFarlane is revealing secrets about the area of Bilston in the Black Country. His focus is on Big Lizzy, an enormous blast furnace that dominated the skyline of the Black Country for decades. And also the black-owned Rising Star Night Club and Major's iconic Bilston chip shop. Roy was born in Birmingham but spent many years living in the Black Country. He’s a Poet and Playwright; has held the role of Birmingham Poet Laureate and is currently the Canal Laureate for Britain. His debut poetry collection, Beginning With Your Last Breath, was followed by The Healing Next Time which was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes award and longlisted for the Jhalak Prize. Producer: Rosie Boulton A Must Try Softer Production A co-funded project between the BBC, The Space and Arts Council England.

Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region. R.M. Francis is sharing the secret world of Wren’s Nest in Dudley. Once a site of intense mining, this was the UK’s first urban nature reserve. It’s world-famous geologically for its well-preserved Silurian coral reef fossils and is considered the most diverse and abundant fossil site in the British Isles. Surrounded by council houses, takeaways, pubs and supermarkets, Wren’s Nest is a very surprising place. RM Francis is a writer from the Black Country. He’s a lecturer in Creative and Professional Writing at the University of Wolverhampton and is currently the poet in residence for the Black Country Geological Society. He's the author of five poetry Chapbook collections plus novels and novellas. Producer: Rosie Boulton A Must Try Softer Production A co-funded project between the BBC, The Space and Arts Council England.

Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region. Brendan Hawthorne is revealing his hidden childhood world of Tipton. Think cooling towers, high-rise flats, scrapyard cranes and angel fish in the canal. Brendan is a poet, playwright, writer and musician who was born in Tipton in the Black Country. He’s released five collections of poetry and had two plays produced locally. He stood on Antony Gormley's Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and appeared on BBC One's The One Show, translating Shirley Bassey lyrics into Black Country dialect to the Dame herself! Brendan is Poet Laureate of Wednesbury, his adopted home town. Producer: Rosie Boulton A Must Try Softer Production A co-funded project between the BBC, The Space and Arts Council England.

Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region. Emma Purshouse is introducing a new visitor to St Barts Church which stands on the hill in Wednesbury. Think cock fights, an unimpeded wind from the Urals and orange chips. Emma was born in Wolverhampton and is a freelance writer, novelist and performance poet. She’s a poetry slam champion and performs regularly at spoken word nights including at The Cheltenham Literature Festival, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Shambala, Womad, Latitude and Solfest. She was Wolverhampton’s first Poet Laureate. Producer: Rosie Boulton A Must Try Softer Production A co-funded project between the BBC, The Space and Arts Council England.

Writers choose a Black Country scene to reveal something of this strangely hidden region. Poet Liz Berry is taking a nighttime drive to the top of a hill in the Black Country to visit the ghosts of her childhood in Sedgley. Liz’s first book of poems, Black Country, a ‘sooty, soaring hymn to her native West Midlands’ (Guardian) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, received a Somerset Maugham Award, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award and Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Liz's pamphlet The Republic of Motherhood was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice and the title poem won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. In her latest book, The Home Child, a novel in verse, Liz reimagines the story of her great aunt Eliza Showell, one of the many children forcibly migrated to Canada as part of the British Child Migrant schemes. Producer: Rosie Boulton A Must Try Softer Production A co-funded project between the BBC, The Space and Arts Council England.

Five writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes. In this final essay of the series, Geoff Dyer retraces a pilgrimage to New Mexico, where DH Lawrence’s ashes were supposedly built into a concrete shrine near Taos at the request of his estranged wife Frieda. But were they actually his ashes? Dyer is a multi-award winning novelist and non-fiction writer. His many books include Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D.H. Lawrence, and his latest The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings, which was published in 2022. Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Five writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes. Today, Brandon Taylor travels uptown through a racially-charged Manhattan to Harlem, where Langston Hughes is buried in a library - literally underneath his prophetic words. Taylor is a New York-based novelist, essayist and short story writer originally from Alabama. His novel Real Life was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and his latest The Late Americans will be published in June 2023. Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Five more writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes. Today Helen Mort ventures up a Yorkshire hill to find Sylvia Plath’s much-vandalised gravestone, a battleground for those claiming the American poet's contested legacy. Born in Sheffield, Mort is an award-winning poet and novelist. Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Five more writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes. Today Tracy Chevalier strolls to Stinsford, the Dorset village where Thomas Hardy’s heart is poetically buried separately from his body at Poets' Corner, Westminster – echoing the writer’s divided self. Chevalier was born in America but now lives in Hardy's beloved home county, Dorset. She has written 11 novels, including Girl with a Pearl Earring, which was adapted into a film of the same name. Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Five more writers go on five reflective, restorative and often playful journeys in search of the final resting places of their literary heroes. Today in the first essay of a new series, Naomi Alderman goes in search of Mary Wollstonecraft's tomb in Old St Pancras churchyard - reputedly the spot where, among other things, Wollstonecraft’s daughter Mary Shelley learnt to write. She sheds light on the life of this important feminist pioneer, offering a moving personal reflection on mother-daughter relationships. Alderman is an award-winning author whose books include Disobedience and The Power, recently adapted into a nine-part TV series. Producer: Ciaran Bermingham

Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England. The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other. 10. Emilia Lanyer Presenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London Producer Mark Rickards A Whistledown Scotland production

Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England. The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other. 9. Mohammed al-Annuri Presenter Jerry Brotton is Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London. Producer Mark Rickards A Whistledown Scotland production

Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England. The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other. 8. Roderigo Lopez Presenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London Producer Mark Rickards A Whistledown Scotland production

Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England. The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other. 7. Mary Fillis Presenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London Producer Mark Rickards A Whistledown Scotland production

Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England. The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other. 6. Chinano 'the Turk' Presenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary. University of London Producer Mark Rickards A Whistledown Scotland production

Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England. The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other. 5. Manteo Presenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London Producer Mark Rickards A Whistledown Scotland production

Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England. The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other. 4. Aura Soltana Presenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London Producer Mark Rickards A Whistledown Scotland production

Jerry Brotton listens for the voices and tells the stories of the ‘other Tudors’: ten men and women from across the world that lived, worked, worshipped and died in Tudor England. The popular fascination with the Tudors tends to concentrate on the lives of white, elite, English-born men (and the occasional woman). But Tudor England also saw Muslims, Jews, Africans and Native Americans come and go from the Russia, Persia, Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Americas, making their homes and careers here, and in the process transforming the nature of early English culture and society. This series tells the stories of ten individuals that reveal a very different story of the Tudor period as a time of multicultural exchange, encounter and ordinary working people living alongside each other. 3. John Cabot Presenter Jerry Brotton, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London Producer Mark Rickards A Whistledown Scotland production