Lisa St Aubin de Terán on BBC Radio 4

It was a pleasure to hear Lisa St Aubin de Terán on BBC Radio 4’s A Good Read earlier this week, joining Harriett Gilbert and Michelle Ogundehin for a conversation that moved between the deeply personal and the sharply political – exactly the terrain in which Lisa’s own writing has always flourished.

Each guest brought a book that had resonated with them. Michelle chose 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman, a work about embracing our limitations and finding clarity in the finite. Lisa’s own recommendation was Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, a powerful fictional retelling of the 2021 tragedy in which twenty-seven people drowned in the English Channel while attempting the crossing from France. Delecroix’s novel gives voice to the French Coastguard officer held responsible for not taking adequate action, exploring the moral weight of witnessing and the uneasy boundaries between guilt, responsibility and helplessness. Harriett’s choice, The Party by Tessa Hadley, returned the conversation to post-war Bristol with Hadley’s characteristically understated emotional precision.

Hearing Lisa speak about Small Boat – about what drew her to it and why certain stories compel us to look again at events we think we understand – was a reminder of the qualities that have defined her work for more than four decades. Her writing has always engaged with the lives that exist at the edges of official narratives, the private reckonings beneath public histories, and the fragile places where moral and emotional truths intersect. Even in a brief radio segment, that clarity of perception, that moral attention, was unmistakable.

For those of us who have lived with her work over many years – and for the new readers who have encountered her through Amaurea – it was heartening to hear her voice again on national radio, bringing the same thoughtfulness and courage that characterise her books.

At Amaurea, Lisa’s writing remains a touchstone. Our serialisation of The Hobby earlier this year opened the novel to a new group of readers and reaffirmed just how singular a work it is: expansive, fiercely humane, and full of the interior life that is uniquely hers. Her memoir Better Broken Than New continues to gather readers slowly and steadily, a book that invites contemplation and rewards it.

We also remain committed to returning more of Lisa’s early work to print in due course. Her body of writing – its range, its honesty, its luminosity – is central to what Amaurea is becoming, and our intention has always been to keep this work available and alive for the audiences it deserves.

For now, though, we simply mark this moment with pleasure. A Good Read offered a brief window into Lisa’s literary sensibility, and it was a privilege to hear her in conversation again – thoughtful, engaged, and as perceptive as ever.

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