Showing results by author "Nicholas Shakespeare" in All Categories

Ian Fleming's greatest creation, James Bond, has had an enormous and ongoing impact on our culture. What Bond represents about ideas of masculinity, the British national psyche and global politics has shifted over time, as has the interpretation of the life of his author. But Fleming himself was more mysterious and subtle than anything he wrote.

22 writers talk about their memorable excursions and the act of walking, and share their creative observations. In these six series, taken from BBC Radio 3's The Essay, an array of novelists, poets, journalists and biographers chart the varied and inspiring walks they have taken around Britain and elsewhere. Here are treks taken at daybreak and after dark; in winter and in spring; in the footsteps of the past; and - in the case of Robert Macfarlane - along the ridges of the South Downs.

Alex und Merridy wissen, was es bedeutet, schwere Schicksalsschläge zu erleiden. Er verlor seine Eltern bei einem Unfall, sie trauert um ihren verschwundenen Bruder. Die beiden treffen und verlieben sich, heiraten sogar, doch ihr inniger Kinderwunsch bleibt unerfüllt. Da tritt eines Tages wie aus dem Nichts ein junger Mensch in das Leben des Paares: der schiffbrüchige Teenager Kish. Ist er die Erfüllung von Alex' und Merridys Wunsch nach einem heilen Familienleben oder stellt sich alles als Illusion heraus?

John le Carré trifft Dürrenmatts Physiker. Marvar, ein iranischer Atomphysiker, hat den Algorithmus für die perfekte Kernfusion gefunden. Ein Wissen, das in den richtigen Händen ein Segen, in den falschen ein Fluch ist. Dann verschwindet Marvar plötzlich, nicht ohne seinem Freund Dyer, einem Journalisten, die Formel zu vermachen. Bald darauf gerät Dyer ins Visier unterschiedlicher Gestalten.

Colonel Rejas was the policeman charged with the task of capturing the Peruvian guerrilla leader Ezequiel, but having been dismissed he finds the burden of silence and secrecy too heavy. On meeting Dyer, a foreign correspondent, he is moved to relate the tortuous progress of the manhunt for the first time. The Dancer Upstairs is a story reminiscent of Graham Greene and John le Carré - tense, intricate, and heartbreaking.

When Nicholas Shakespeare stumbled across a trunk full of his late aunt's personal belongings, he was unaware of where this discovery would take him and what he would learn about her hidden past. The glamorous, mysterious figure he remembered from his childhood was very different from the morally ambiguous young woman who emerged from the trove of love letters, journals, and photographs, surrounded by suitors and living the precarious existence of a British citizen in a country controlled by the enemy during World War II.