BBC Proms - 2010 - Proms Plus - Proms Literary Festival - Berlin Writing

Philip Kerr, the best-selling author of the Berlin Noir trilogy joins presenter Anne McElvoy to discuss writing inspired by the city of Berlin. He argues that Berlin is the "Ur" city of the 20th century: it was the city to which people fled after the Russian Revolution, the permissive, cultural heart of the Weimar Republic and the centre of the Cold War. The influence of Berlin on British writers and artists has been tremendous and there'll be excerpts of writing by Stephen Spender, Christopher Isherwood, John Le Carre and David Bowie. Their conversation is recorded in front of an audience at the Royal College of Music as part of this year's Proms Literary Festival.