Australian novelist Peter Carey.

A car race around Australia is fictionalised in Peter Carey's latest novel. He talks to Rana Mitter about depicting race and racing. Josephine Quinn questions whether the Phoenicians existed as she looks at the way ancient texts and artworks helped construct an identity for the ancient civilization on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, stretching through what is now Syria, Lebanon and northern Israel. Classicist and novelist Natalie Haynes discusses Ovid's tales and Rana Mitter speaks to this year's TS Eliot Prize winner Ocean Vuong.

Peter Carey's latest novel is called A Long Way Home.

Josephine Quinn has published In Search of the Phoenicians.

Natalie Haynes most recent novel is called The Children of Jocasta. Radio 3's The Essay this week consists of five retellings of Ovid.

Ocean Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds is out now.

Producer: Debbie Kilbride