The Overseas Student, Cherie Jones, India's Parliamentary District row

Published: June 23, 2021, 7:02 p.m.

We're speaking to all the authors shortlisted for the Women\u2019s Prize for Fiction 2021 and tonight it's the turn of Cherie Jones. Her novel, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House, is set on and around the Barbados beaches of the 80s. Lala braids tourists\u2019 hair in the idyllic setting but her home life is blighted by poverty, violence and lack of choices \u2013 and when she has a baby, a dangerous chain of events is set in motion. Cherie Jones talks about this debut novel that has been years in the writing.

Anish Kapoor wrote an article earlier this month decrying what he described as a \u201chate-filled campaign to de-Islamify India\u2026via the destruction of a world-class monument.\u201d The monument he was referring to was India\u2019s Parliament which he said was \u201cthe greatest set of government buildings anywhere in the world.\u201d Professor Sarover Zaidi, from the Jindal School of Art and Architecture, and BBC journalist Geeta Pandey, who is based in the BBC\u2019s Delhi bureau, join Samira to discuss the controversial Central Vista Project which aims to redevelop India\u2019s Parliamentary district.

In Tanika Gupta\u2019s new play The Overseas Student the young man who comes from India to study Law is Mohandas Gandhi. While here he strove to fit in as an English gentleman, and was not politically active. But, the playwright tells Samira that his years living in Hammersmith and walking the streets of London shaped the man who became the great leader in India\u2019s independence movement.

Presenter: Samira Ahmed\nProducer: Julian May\nStudio Engineer: Duncan Hannant

Main image: Esh Alladi in The Overseas Student at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.\nImage credit: Helen Maybanks