Valeria Luiselli

Presenter James Crawford speaks to award-winning Mexican American novelist and essayist Valeria Luiselli about her latest novel, Beginning Middle End, and its three key literary influences.

In the novel, a mother and her twelve-year-old daughter travel across a wildfire-stricken Sicily in search of family history, archaeology, and the inner-workings of story itself. Along the way, the mother remains in contact with her own mother in Mexico, who may be beginning to experience dementia.

Valeria’s three influences are Natural History by Pliny the Elder (1st century AD), Dart by Alice Oswald (2002), and On Nature by Empedocles (c.450 BC).

The audio extract comes from the audiobook of Beginning Middle End.

Producer: Rachael O'Neill Editor: Gillian Wheelan This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.