Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

Radio 4,07 Sep 2026,27 mins

Russell Kane on Iris Murdoch

Great Lives

Available for over a year

Iris Murdoch was born in Ireland in 1919, grew up in London and was educated in Bristol and Oxford. She's famous both as a novelist and a philosopher, and she won the Booker Prize in 1978 for The Sea, The Sea. Her nominator is Russell Kane, who is full of admiration for her work. This compelling discussion of what makes Iris great includes contributions from her friend and biographer, Peter Conradi; and from Miles Leeson, Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre in Chichester. Great Lives is presented by Matthew Parris and produced by Miles Warde. Other guests in this final series of Great Lives include Ruby Tandoh on children's author Brian Jacques; Pauline Black of The Selector on Poly Styrene of X Ray Spex; and Mel Giedroyc on her ancestor, Russia's first female military surgeon, Princess Vera Gedroits.

Programme Website
More episodes