On a winter's night in 1974, a crime took place that would obsess the nation.

It was an extraordinary news story.

The story of an aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who's said to have killed the family Nanny,

mistaking her for his wife, then somehow just disappeared.

One of the great mysteries in English criminal history. We're still looking for Lucan.

It's honestly one of the most powerful stories of my lifetime.

I'm Alex von Tundselman.

This is The Lucan Obsession.

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Today we take a literary voyage to warmer climes, in our minds at least,

as we set sail to talk to a new generation of writers from Spain and Latin America.

Of course, listeners of Open Book will already be familiar with names such as Jorge Lue Beogges,

Gabriel Garcia-Marquez,

Javier Marquez and Isabel Allende. But the latest crop of authors is pioneering new ways

of interpreting this impressive legacy. These are writers who take on sociopolitical upheaval and

racial identity with a distinctly feminist and contemporary tone.

And if all that sounds a bit heavy, rest assured there are plenty of laughs too.

When Mona, the messy, complicated protagonist, a polar Oloi Shadak's new novel,

meets a good-looking man at a literary event, she makes a typically wry observation that he was too handsome to be a

novelist. I couldn't possibly comment. I'll be talking to Pola in a moment, but first we turn

to Valerie Miles, writer, publisher, translator and one of the founding editors of Granta in

...