The Essay

There is fascinating evidence that 5,000 years ago, people living in Britain and Ireland had a deep and meaningful relationship with the underworld seen in the carved chalk, animal bones and human skeletons found at Cranborne Chase in Dorset in a large pit, at the base of which had been sunk a 7-metre-deep shaft. Other examples considered in this Essay include Carrowkeel in County Sligo, the passa...

Advances in robotics and virtual reality are giving us ever more 'realistic' ways of representing the world, but the quest for vivid visualisation is thousands of years old. This essay takes the guide to oratory and getting your message across written by the ancient Roman Quintilian and focuses in on a wall painting of The Judgment of Solomon in an Elizabethan house in the village of Much Hadham i...

This Essay tells a story of political marches and everyday acts of radical care; of sledgehammers and bags of rice; of the struggles for justice waged by migrant domestic workers but it also charts the realisation of Ella Parry-Davies, that acknowledging publicly for the first time her own condition of epilepsy – or “coming out crip” – is part of the story of our blindness to inequalities in healt...

When Tom Smith sets out to research allegations of racism in Berlin’s club scene, he finds himself face to face with his own past in techno’s birthplace: Detroit. Visiting the music distributor Submerge, he considers the legacy of the pioneers Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, the influence of Afro-futurism and the work done in Berlin to popularise techno by figures including Kemal Ku...

Poet Kenneth Steven finds inspiration in Scotland's west coast islands. Each memoir concludes with a poem written about the island he has visited. 5. The Holy Island: a personal reflection on an uninhabited island of spiritual peace.

Poet Kenneth Steven finds inspiration in Scotland's west coast islands. Each memoir concludes with a poem written about the island he has visited. 4. Barra: Gaelic songs and dances at the southern end of the Outer Hebrides.

Poet Kenneth Steven finds inspiration in Scotland's west coast islands. Each memoir concludes with a poem written about the island he has visited. 3. Staffa: the carved pillars and grottos that brought visitors from all over the world.

Poet Kenneth Steven finds inspiration in Scotland's west coast islands. Each memoir concludes with a poem written about the island he has visited. 2. Jura: two majestic mountains and a whirlpool, where George Orwell found inspiration for 1984.

Poet Kenneth Steven finds inspiration in Scotland's west coast islands. Each memoir concludes with a poem written about the island he has visited. 1. Mingulay: in the Outer Hebrides, an island comparable in its wild beauty and isolation to St Kilda.

Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present. In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five...

Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present. In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five...

Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present. In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five...

Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present. In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five...

Diaries are one of our oldest literary traditions, conjuring questions of private confessions and public display. In this series of essays we explore five diarists of the past through the lens of the present. In these extraordinary times, when the shift between the domestic and the out-of-reach wider world is ever more pronounced, Radio 3 has commissioned five Essays on the theme of diaries – five...

leading writers share their secrets of places of inner sanctuary 10.Aida Edemariam

leading writers on places of inner sanctuary in times of crisis 8.michael morpurgo

Leading writers share the secrets of places of inner sanctuary 9.David Constantine

leading writers on a place of inner refuge in times of crisis 7.evie wyld

leading writers share the secrets of their internal places of refuge in times of crisis

Leading writers share secrets of their place of internal refuge 5.Alice Oswald

leading writers share the secrets of places of internal refuge in crisis 4.Tessa Hadley

leading writers evoke places of internal refuges which they visit in times of crisis

Leading writers share the secrets of places of internal refuge in times of crisis

Writers on personal places of refuge in times of crisis 1.Alan Hollinghurst

Marybeth Hamilton on the ghosts of Joe Hill and Paul Robeson and their linked fates.