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

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: The Book that Changed Me

The Essay: The Book that Changed Me: Episode 4: Malorie Blackman on The Color Purple

Malorie Blackman on The Color Purple

Episode 4

Episode 4: Malorie Blackman on The Color Purple

The Book that Changed Me

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Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman on Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple.

Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman discusses how Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple legitimised her need to be a writer.

Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman on how Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple" legitimised her need to be a writer. She writes how the novel was "about the triumph of the human spirit". Reading it for the first in her early 20s it "blasted open a door which I thought was locked and barred to me. Actually it blasted open a door which I didn't appreciate even existed. A door that could lead to a writing career of my own... this book and its author showed that it was possible for me to not only be an author but to have my own voice."

Producer: Smita Patel.

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.

Series in which five people discuss the books that inspired them in their chosen careers

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Episode 4: Malorie Blackman on The Color Purple

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