From August 1942 till February of the following year Nazi forces laid siege to the city of Stalingrad. The city became hell on earth as Stalin and Hitler poured men, munitions, and machines into this bloody cauldron of urban fighting. As the buildings collapsed around them in explosive detonations Russian and German soldiers fought close and brutal fire fights in the rubble of the city, while the ever present threat of snipers whispered death to the careless and unfortunate.

Stalingrad wasn’t a simple battlefield, however, and ordinary life tried to cling to its streets and buildings as the war raged around them. Though a great deal of the city had emptied ahead of the advancing German forces many men, women, and children remained in the city as the tide of war washed over Stalingrad. Suffering through a freezing winter, starvation, and disease the German 6^th Army was eventually encircled and forced to surrender.

Approximately 90,000 German soldiers had survived the long and arduous battle only to be sent to the infamous Soviet Gulags in Siberia. Millions of Germans were held as Russian POWs by the end of the Second World War with at least 380,000 dying in custody. Those who did survive came back to Germany in trickles and streams, and in 1956 the last of the POWs were repatriated.

Soviet troops waving the Red Flag over Stalingrad's central plaza in 1943

Baileys Women’s Prize for fiction nominee, Audrey Magee has made this tale of Stalingrad and its aftermath the focus of her latest novel, ‘The Undertaking’. The story follows Peter Faber, an ordinary soldier in the German Wehrmacht, as he enters into a marriage of convenience with the young Katharina Spinell. A simple plan to get Peter three weeks leave and secure Katharina a widow’s pension should he die, human emotion soon complicates the plan and Peter finds himself unable to dispel the thought of the now pregnant Katharina from his mind as he marches to Stalingrad.

Susan talks with Audrey about her novel and Peter and Katharina’s journey. Join ‘Talking Books’ as we delve into the decisions the war forces these characters to make. How does Audrey develop her characters? What are their lives like? And what are the consequences of their marriage and Peter’s departure for the front?

Anne, Emily, and Charlotte painted by their brother Branwell Brontë circa 1834

Susan delves further back in history to round off the hour as she talks with Dr Jim Shanahan of St Patrick’s College Drumcondra about the 19^th century novel. The industrial and agricultural revolutions affected great change across Britain during the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Factories brought crowds of people streaming to cities for work while the technological boom revolutionised life in almost all its forms. Born from these rapid changes was the Great British Novel.

Focusing on people rather than events and telling their tales in long yet elegantly simple prose, Jane Austin began a literary revolution with her novels that can still be felt today. We can still see echoes of Austin’s work in novels written today and find references to her characters and settings in all sorts of creative works. Figures like the Brontë sisters, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy took up Austin’s banner and helped to make the novel the centre of literature in 19^th century Britain.

Join us on ‘Talking Books’ as Susan revisits the literary revolution that swept across the bedrooms and drawing rooms of Britain during the 19^th century. Hear Dr Jim Shanahan of St Patrick’s English Department tell how this revolution came about and what its lasting impact has been. What are his favourite novels from the 19^th century? What makes them so great? And which should we be reading?