Ep 3. Noreen Masud, A Flat Place

In this episode, we read the start of chapter 4 of Noreen Masud's A Flat Place (2023), pages 98-9 in the UK paperback edition. Buy the book from a local independent bookshop, or via Bookshop.org.Noreen Masud is a Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Bristol, and an AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker. Her academic monograph, Stevie Smith and the Aphorism: Hard Language (Oxford University Press, 2022) won the MSA First Book Award 2023 and the University English Prize in 2024. Her memoir-travelogue, A Flat Place (Hamish Hamilton [Penguin] and Melville House Press, 2023), was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Trust Young Writer of the Year Award, the Jhalak Prize, the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Books are my Bag Reader Awards.Follow Noreen on Instagram (@NoreenMasud) and Bluesky (@noreenmasud.bsky.social).Find the transcript, the extract we discuss, and more about the episode on Substack. Follow the podcast on Instagram.Please leave feedback here.Produced, hosted, and edited by Chris Lloyd.