Episode description

Isaac Babel, born in Odessa in 1894, became a journalist and writer before being executed in 1940 in Stalin's purges. In stories of extreme economy and compression, he depicted the Polish-Soviet War of 1918-21, and the exploits of Jewish gangsters in Odessa in the years before the Soviet revolution. Matthew Sweet is joined by Linda Grant, AD Miller, Boris Dralyuk, and Diana Vonnak to discuss Babel's work and its resonances today.

Producer: Luke Mulhall You might also be interested in Radio 3's series The Essay: Words for War in which Oksana Maksymchuk introduces the words of Ukrainian poets https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0016b7h