Mariella Frostrup talks to Ali Smith about Sylvia Plath's ground breaking novel The Bell Jar, fifty years after it was first published. With the announcement of the Goldsmiths Prize for writers of boldly, original fiction - writer and broadcaster Alex Preston and author, poet and Profesor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, Blake Morrison, consider what being experimental and innovative means for 21st century novelists. And in his 17th novel, Bedlam, Scottish crime writer Christopher Brookmyre turns to science fiction for inspiration.
