Human beings have been telling stories for thousands of years, but what actually makes for a good story? Authors have been trying to settle on the great principles of compelling writing for as long as people have been writing. Yet, as Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro argue, something has gone amiss in these manuals on the art of storytelling: they have tended to privilege a Western perspective. Anappara and Soomro came to Intelligence Squared to talk about their new anthology, Letters to a Writer of Colour, in which they ask us to critically examine the assumptions that shape the way we think fiction should be written. What might fiction look like if we considered alternative ways of constructing narratives that were grounded in the experiences of a person of colour? Together with with two of the contributors to the collection, Sharlene Teo and Leila Aboulela, they explored one of the things we all have a primal need for – stories, and lots of different kinds of them. This podcast was recored on the 4th of April 2023 and was produced by Executive Producer Hannah Kaye. Editing was by Executive Producer Rowan Slaney — Thanks for listening to this episode of Intelligence Squared! We’d love to hear your feedback and what you think we should talk about next, who we should have on and what our future debates should be. Send us an email or voice note with your thoughts to [email protected] or Tweet us @intelligence2. And if you’d like to get ad-free access to all Intelligence Squared podcasts, including exclusive bonus content, early access to new episodes and much more, become a supporter of Intelligence Squared today for just £4.99, or the equivalent in your local currency . Just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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