Front Row - 18/03/2009

Presented by Mark Lawson. The David Cohen Prize for Literature is awarded to a writer who has contributed a significant amount to British literature, so much so that their work warrants recognition for a lifetime's achievement. Mark reveals and talks to this year's winner of one of the UK's most coveted literary awards. Author Alain de Botton discusses his latest book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, which explores the joys and perils of the modern workplace and aims to understand what makes work both one of the most exciting and most painful of all our activities. Flash of Genius tells the tale of one man's fight to prove his idea for the intermittent windshield wiper was stolen by the US automobile industry. Trevor Baylis, best known for inventing the wind-up radio, discusses the film. Fourteen authors have made it on to the Judges' List of Contenders for the third Man Booker International Prize. The writers come from 12 countries and seven are writers in translation. Chair of judges, the novelist Jane Smiley, joins Mark from New York to discuss the contenders.