Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

Ukrainian-American author Ilya Kaminsky's new book of poetry, performed by Christopher Eccleston, Fiona Shaw, Noma Dumezweni and Arinz茅 Kene.

"We lived happily during the war / And when they bombed other people's houses, we / protested, / but not enough, we opposed them but not / enough".

In a departure for Book of the Week, Radio 4 presents an adaptation of Ukrainian-American author Ilya Kaminsky's new book of poetry, read by Fiona Shaw, Christopher Eccleston, Noma Dumezweni and Arinz茅 Kene.

Deaf Republic defies classification - it is a poetic narrative, a drama-in-verse, a contemporary epic. In an unnamed country, soldiers shoot dead a young deaf boy at a public gathering and the townspeople respond with refusal to hear the government's commands. Deafness becomes a form of protest and resistance.

This is a fable which speaks incisively about our political moment: about populations living under occupation and about governments at war with their own people. It is about our collective deafness to trauma happening elsewhere to others; and about the news we might choose not to hear. At its heart it is also a tender love story about a pregnant woman and her husband, caught up in this crisis; their love and joy set against the horror of events.

The week's programming begins with a documentary about Ilya Kaminsky, providing the backstory to this remarkable new work, more than 15 years in the making. Deaf since the age of 4, when a doctor in his native Ukraine misdiagnosed mumps as a cold, Ilya learned as a boy to closely observe the world around him. When his family fled to the USA as political refugees and settled there, he taught himself English by translating American poems back and forth between languages. We hear from Ilya and from leading authors Andrew Motion, Max Porter, Raymond Antrobus, Garth Greenwell and Carolyn Forch茅.

The book itself can be heard adapted across the following four episodes. The performers are Fiona Shaw (Fleabag, Killing Eve), Christopher Eccleston (The A Word, Doctor Who), Arinz茅 Kene (Death of a Salesman, Been So Long, The Pass) and Olivier Award-winning Noma Dumezweni (Harry Potter, Black Earth Rising).

Illustrations by Jennifer Whitten
Produced by Mair Bosworth with original sound design and music by Aaron May.

14 minutes

Last on

Sat 22 Jun 2019 00:30

Broadcasts

  • Fri 21 Jun 2019 09:45
  • Sat 22 Jun 2019 00:30

Listen to more Audio Books

Listen to more Audio Books

Including My Sister The Serial Killer, Queenie, The Flatshare and more.

Opening Lines

Opening Lines

John Yorke unpacks the themes behind the stories in Radio 4's weekend afternoon dramas.

Sample our books and authors Clip Collection

Interviews, previews and reviews

Subscribe to the Short stories podcast

Featuring the best stories from the UK's finest writers

How many of these 100 Novels have you read?

How many of these 100 Novels have you read?

After a passionate debate, our panel has come up with this surprising literary selection.

Finding Your Story

Finding Your Story

Ten remarkable novels about identity: Which one will help you discover yourself?

91热爆 Arts: Books

Celebrating reading and the 100 novels that have shaped our world.