BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Radio 3’s flagship arts programme until 2013. Over 350 editions available in the archive.

Radio 3’s flagship arts programme until 2013. Search the extensive archive for interviews, debates and reviews. Go to Free Thinking for the new home of arts and ideas on Radio 3.

Night Waves: Barbaric Genius

Barbaric Genius

21/05/2012

BBC Radio 3 - Night Waves, Barbaric Genius

Matthew Sweet talks to authors Marilynne Robinson and John Healy.

Matthew Sweet discusses Barbaric Genius, a new documentary charting the story of writer John Healy from street mugger to international chess champion and award-winning author.

Matthew Sweet will be talking to the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson about the theologian, Jean Calvin and what she believes is his profound influence on the great tradition of American literature.

Also in the programme, the writer John Healy. After fifteen years of living on the streets of London as an alcoholic, Healy discovered chess in prison, and then wrote an acclaimed autobiography, The Grass Arena. As a new documentary, Barbaric Genius, sets out to unravel the tangled story of how that publishing success turned into infamy, John Healy talks to Matthew about his life and his writing.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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