The Documentary Podcast

In 2020, the Canadian writer Madeleine Thien was working on her next novel, the follow-up to her prize-winning 2016 book Do Not Say We Have Nothing. But it was difficult to find the internal peace and privacy to begin again, especially after being catapulted into the public eye by the previous novel’s success. Paul Kobrak followed her over several months as she created the first drafts of the new novel. It is a process which moves from Berlin to Brooklyn and finally to Portugal's capital city Lisbon. Five years later, the novel, called The Book of Records, is being published.

A bonus episode from Good Bad Billionaire - the award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. You can find more episodes by searching for ‘Good Bad Billionaire’ wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Minecraft is the most successful computer game ever. It's sold 300 million copies, built an active community of fans and there's now even a Minecraft movie. So how did one man - Markus Persson - create it all by himself, before selling it for billions? BBC business editor Simon Jack and journalist Zing Tsjeng find out how a high school dropout, obsessed with Lego and gaming, became a computer game hero. The Swedish programmer, known by the nickname Notch, built a virtual 3D world where, with the help of a pickaxe, players could harness their creativity to build almost anything, one block at a time. Persson founded the video game development company Mojang Studios, before selling it to Microsoft, but then came a spectacular downfall. Good Bad Billionaire is the podcast exploring the lives of the super-rich and famous, tracking their wealth, philanthropy, business ethics and success. There are leaders who made their money in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street and in high street fashion. From iconic celebrities and CEOs to titans of technology, the podcast unravels tales of fortune, power, economics, ambition and moral responsibility, before inviting you to make up your own mind: are they good, bad or just another billionaire?

According to the World Health Organisation, 77% of Nigerian women have used skin-lightening creams. When BBC Hausa’s Madina Maishanu decided to look into this, she uncovered an even more worrying trend: mothers using potentially harmful products on their babies. Madina spoke to the campaigners trying to stop these practices. Plus, how human activities and climate change are threatening shea trees in Uganda with Njoroge Muigai from BBC Africa. Presented by Faranak Amidi Produced by Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)

Mark Lowen in Rome brings people together to share their memories of the Pope, who died on Easter Monday. In our conversations, Mark hears from Catholics in Argentina, including one of Pope Francis’ friends who knew him when he was a priest in Buenos Aires. We also bring together three people from Northern Ireland who had a private audience with the Pope, and three women who describe how he changed their lives. Mark sits down with Iraqi-American Pilgrims in a café just outside the Vatican to chat about what the Pope meant to them.

A bonus episode from Dear Daughter - the award-winning podcast from the BBC World Service. You can find more episodes by searching for ‘Dear Daughter’ wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Bridgerton actor Adjoa Andoh joins Namulanta in the studio to share the letter she’s written to her three children. She tells them the importance of trusting their bodies and following their instincts - a life philosophy which has sometimes led her into some unexpected situations, especially while pregnant… Dear Daughter is a podcast all about love, life, family, and raising children. It is the brainchild of Namulanta Kombo, a mother on a quest to create a ‘handbook to life’ for her daughter, through the advice of parents from all over the world. Each episode, a guest reads a letter they’ve written to their children (or their future children, or the children they never had) with the advice, life lessons, and personal stories they’d like to pass on. Expect extraordinary true stories, inspirational advice for parents, and moving accounts of families, relationships and raising daughters.