Book of the Week - When Skateboards Will Be Free - Episode 3

Josh Hamilton reads from American-Iranian writer Said Sayrafiezadeh's funny and touching memoir. Said has a treasured photo of his father giving a speech, which hangs above his bed. It is blurred and eventually Said conflates his father's image with that of another hero his mother tells him about: Che Guevara. One night his mother receives a rare phone call from her estranged husband and is so distraught that she takes the phone off its hook every night. Just as Said feels that his father has abandoned them, he receives a letter from him. Oddly, his dad congratulates him for selling a record number of Militants at a demonstration but Said, at ten, is too young to have been given such a task, although now he badly wants to make money for the revolution. Abridged by Francois Smit. A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.