Niall Williams, Armistead Maupin, Contemporary Chinese Literature

Niall William's talks about his latest book History of the Rain, which tells the story of Ruth Swain who, confined to bed with an unknown illness, is surrounded by almost four thousand books, as she narrates and writes the history of her family. Interwoven in this story is Ruth's love of literature which she uses as a lens to view the world. Niall explains what drew him back to writing about the pleasure of reading and he explains the importance of Irish storytelling and Charles Dickens to this novel.

A couple of weeks ago Open Book featured a reading from Decoded, a code breaking spy novel by the hugely popular Chinese writer Mai Jai . Written originally in 2005, it's published in English for the first time.

To discuss what's happening in the Chinese literary scene - the popular trends including the spy novel, the issues facing today's authors and who to watch out for that's heading our way, Mariella is joined by translator Nicky Harman, journalist and novelist Karen Ma and translator and co-founder of the literary website Paper Republic, Eric Abrahamsen.

We return to our occasional series, the book you'd never lend for fear of not getting it back and hear from author Armistead Maupin about his choice of Christopher Isherwood's Down There on a Visit.

Producer: Andrea Kidd.