Alive in the Merciful Country

A.L. Kennedy is the British author of three works of non-fiction, and five short story collections including All The Rage. She won the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day, has twice been selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists and is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Society of Literature. She is also a dramatist and broadcaster and she has a regular blog with The Guardian Online. She lives in London and is a part-time lecturer in creative writing at the University of Warwick. Her latest book is Alive in the Merciful Country.

Emily Joyce is a London based English actress and voice artist. Her 30+ years of experience includes theatre performances as Viola in Twelfth Night at the RSC, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (West End) and Heather in the musical The Band. She is equally at home on TV in comedy (My Hero, Friday Night Dinner) and high drama (Cracker, Messiah 2, Midsomer Murders, Casualty) and has appeared in several radio plays and comedies for BBC Radio 4.

British actor and director Carl Prekopp’s voice work includes appearing alongside the BBC Symphony & Philharmonic Orchestra in Neil Brand’s Wind in the Willows, A Christmas Carol and The Hound of the Baskervilles. In 2019, Carl was nominated as Audio Performer of the Year for narrating The Binding. In 2020, Carl received the Silver award for Audio Performer of the Year at the Audio Production Awards for The Little Match Girl. In 2024 he won the ARIAS GOLD AWARD for Best Reading for Open Throat for BBC Radio 4.