Chigozie Obioma

Alice Munro and Lydia Davis are two formidable masters of the short story, but this month sees the re-issue of their only novels, Lives of Girls and Women and The End of the Story. Sarah Churchwell, Professor of American Literature at the University of East Anglia joins Mariella to discuss the merits of their longer form fiction.

We visit Paris in the springtime with a literary postcard from the writer and publisher Paul Fournel.

The young Nigerian novelist Chigozie Obioma talks about his debut novel The Fishermen. Set in a small town in western Nigeria, it combines the traditions of African storytelling with a contemporary narrative of family, politics and history.

And as we looked to the skies on Friday, Open Book asked astronomer turned writer Pippa Goldschmidt to gather together the writers who have found inspiration in the extraordinary celestial event of the solar eclipse.