Main content

Anthony Horowitz

Episode 1 of 5

Anthony Horowitz considers the role of the family in children's writing, focusing on family dysfunction in Dahl's Matilda and his own eccentric relations.

In this series of five essays, contemporary children's authors and editors each look at a fictional family from children's literature.
They use it as a focal point to explore the changing portrayal of the family in children's books, and consider both what it tells us about the society it reflects, and how relevant it is to determining a young generation's attitudes to the future.

In the first programme, writer Anthony Horowitz discusses Roald Dahl's badly-parented Matilda, and considers how normal dysfunctional family life probably is. However, despite this, he argues that it is essential for all of us to have some sense of family. He reflects on how his own place in his rather eccentric and sometimes unhappy family led to his escape into books, and his creative success.

First broadcast in February 2012.

Available now

15 minutes

Last on

Mon 24 Jun 2013 22:45

More episodes

Previous

You are at the first episode

See all episodes from The Essay

Broadcasts

  • Mon 6 Feb 2012 22:45
  • Mon 24 Jun 2013 22:45

Death in Trieste

Death in Trieste

A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.

Watch: My Deaf World

Watch: My Deaf World

Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.

The Book that Changed Me

Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.

Download The Essay

Download The Essay

Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.

Podcast