Katja Mann: A Life with Thomas Mann

The Last Straw is a film documenting the very last live poetry reading given by Charles Bukowski at The Sweetwater, a music club in Redondo Beach, California on March 31, 1980

The elusive author of Waiting for Godot cooperated in the production of this portrait, which traces Beckett’s artistic life through his prose, plays, and poetry. Billie Whitelaw, Jack McGowran, and Patrick Magee—Beckett’s great dramatic interpreters—appear in selected extracts from the plays; Beckett specialist David Warrilow narrates a variety of texts.

Samuel Beckett has fascinated Adrian Dunbar since he was a young student. Now, 30 years after Beckett's death in Paris, Dunbar explores what made the man who made Waiting for Godot.

Hosted by Keeley Hawes, star of the popular television series The Durrells, this documentary reveals the adventures of the eccentric Durrell family once they left Corfu, Greece.

Documentary tracing the extreme life of outlaw writer, performance artist and punk icon, Kathy Acker. Through animation, archival footage, interviews and dramatic reenactments, director Barbara Caspar explores Acker's colorful history, from her well-heeled upbringing to her role as the scribe of society's fringe.

In this artistic exploration of the life and work of writer Henry Miller, filmmaker Joe Kishton skillfully weaves clips of films and interviews of Miller with the music of Laurie Anderson. From Miller himself we hear of his difficult relationship with his parents, and of his need to create, even (or especially) when his message abrades social mores.

At the crossroads of Black literary consciousness and political struggle, the ideas of Claude McKay, Jamaican poet and novelist, laid the foundations for major literary movements, including Négritude. Proudly wandering, both bohemian and politically committed, a chameleon with a magnetic personality, he traveled across the globe: New York’s literary scene, Parisian aristocracy, Communist intelligentsia in Russia, and Black diasporas in the port of Marseille. Using archival materials and texts read in voice-over by Gaël Faye and Manon Azem, the film traces McKay’s journey as he crosses paths with major figures of his time, from George Bernard Shaw to W.E.B. Du Bois, Trotski, and many others.

The film focuses on the exciting life journey of Swiss writer Katharina Zimmermann. She follows her husband on a mission to the jungle in Indonesia where she raises their four children and five foster children and lives through the military coup. Back in Switzerland Katharina discovers her voice and finds her path. Now, at eighty, she is writing her life story. Yet suddenly she faces another battle because her publisher is threatening to let her go.

Emmy Award-winning chronicle of the history of Orchard House, the home in Concord, Massachusetts where Louisa May Alcott wrote and set Little Women.

This in-depth program explores Philip K. Dick`s world, a universe full of mysteries and intrigues.

A look back at the troubled life of genius British writer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941).

Writers, publishers, fans, and friends share their perspectives and memories of sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick. In his career, Philip Kindred Dick (1928–82) published dozens of science fiction novels and short stories. His work has reached a wider audience due to such film adaptations as BLADE RUNNER (1982), TOTAL RECALL (1990), MINORITY REPORT (2002), and A SCANNER DARKLY (2006).

One of the most controversial writers of our times, join Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh as he undergoes a remarkable trip to find new meaning in his work, life and legacy.

Oliver Walston investigates his mother Catherine's 20-year relationship with the writer Graham Greene, which gave rise to Greene's famous novel The End of the Affair, twice adapted as a feature film. The documentary follows the second film during its production, where screenwriter/director Neil Jordan and stars Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore offer their personal perspectives on the novel's continuing resonance.

A wordless, silent interview with Samuel Beckett for Swedish Television after Beckett won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

British author Agatha Christie (1890-1976) is the world's most translated author: her heroes, private detective Hercule Poirot and amateur sleuth Miss Marple, are known the world over. But who is the woman behind her bestsellers? A biographical search for clues, the unraveling of an iridescent personality whose existence and works were shaped by the tragic history of the 20th century: the eventful life of the Queen of Crime.

In his second international bestseller, "Arc de Triomphe," author Erich Maria Remarque explores his own experience of exile and his decisive encounter with Marlene Dietrich. From Paris and Antibes to Los Angeles and New York, the documentary traces the moving genesis of this highly autobiographical novel, now considered a major work of European exile literature, and the literary legacy of the long-standing passion between two global stars.

John Irving's literary worlds are satirically exaggerated, socially critical, unexpectedly magical. But how do these dazzling, sometimes bizarre, narrative worlds emerge? A unique insight into his writing workshop and a search of the places and people who have become part of his stories.

While it may be universally acknowledged that she’s one of the great English writers, Giles Coren breaks down his many reasons for hating Jane Austen.

Louisa May Alcott, author of "Little Women," leads a literary double life, writing under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard, an identity that remains until the 1940s.