World literature In 2021, we will hopefully see theatres back open again. One of last year’s anticipated happenings that didn’t happen was the premiere of Zadie Smith’s first play, The Wife of Willesden, an adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath. If it doesn’t get to the stage anytime soon, never fear, Hamish Hamilton are publishing the manuscript in June. It will be interesting to see what Smith does with the bawdy poetry of Chaucer. Jonathan Franzen isn’t known for breaking the fourth wall, but his new novel sounds faintly metafictional. Crossroads (4th Estate, October) is the first in a trilogy called The Key to All Mythologies. That name, of course, is taken from a book the insufferable Casaubon never finishes in George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Crossroads spans three generations of the Hildebrandt family during the second half of the 20th century. Franzen is often called America’s greatest living novelist, which he’s not, because there isn’t one,
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Staff choir singers from Leicester hospitals are hoping for a Christmas No. 1
ICU staff have recorded a cover of a Police classic
Some of Leicester s Liberty Singers choir members hoping to reach the number one spot in this year s Christmas chart. (Image: Leicester Hospitals)
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BBC News
By Manish Pandey and Sinead Garvan
Newsbeat reporters
image captionLaura and Sarah are both part of the choir called ICU Liberty Singers
They have spent much of the year battling coronavirus in hospitals, but now, an online choir of intensive care staff is attempting to reach Christmas number one.
The 100-strong group is covering the Police track Every Breath You Take to raise money to support the mental health of ICU staff. Music is good for the soul. It s really uplifting and genuine to sing a way through this, Laura Morton, a member of the choir, tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.