Zadie Smith, Women and their Scars, Xuefei Yang and Maternity Care

Published: Aug. 6, 2020, 11:01 a.m.

b'

Zadie Smith\\u2019s newest book, \\u2018Intimations\\u2019, was written during the early months of lockdown. It is a series of personal essays reflecting on the unprecedented situation of a worldwide pandemic, hoping to provoke readers to reflect on what has happened and what might come next.

Maternity care is to be the first focus of an independent new panel set up by the Health and Social Care Committee to give ratings to pledges made by the government. Ros Bragg from Maternity Action talks about what she would expect to be looked at, and the Chair of the new panel, Dame Jane Dacre, Professor of Medical Edcation at University College London, explains how patients\\u2019 experience will form a part of this evaluation.

In a new series we\\u2019re talking to women about their scars. They all talk about physical and emotional pain and the business of having to deal with other people\\u2019s reactions on a day to day basis and of coming to terms with the skin they are in. Today, Emily\\u2019s story.

Xuefei Yang is one of the world\\u2019s leading classical guitarists. Born in China, she started playing guitar aged seven, less than a decade after the end of the cultural revolution at a time when guitars were not well known in the country. By aged 10 she had already given her first public appearance. She toured the world as a schoolgirl and has now performed in over 50 countries. Her latest album, Sketches of China, draws from over 2000 years of Chinese culture and music. Making it has been a long-held dream, requiring transposing traditional music for the guitar to increase the repertoire for her instrument. She talks to Jenni about the stories behind the album, the story of the kidnapped intellectual woman Wenji Cai during the Han Dynasty and why it\\u2019s important to her to celebrate Chinese culture now.

'