Free Thinking

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

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Free Thinking: Anna Kavan

Anna Kavan

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Anna Kavan

Matthew Sweet looks at the writer of a dystopian psychodrama, Ice, who died in 1968.

Chris Power, Carole Sweeney, Victoria Walker and Sally Marlow, Radio 3's researcher in residence, join Matthew Sweet to discuss the troubled life and powerful work of Anna Kavan.

Asylum and psychiatric institutions, obsession and heroin, and imagining a new self are explored in the writing of Anna Kavan (1901-1968). With the republication of her novel Ice and a series of artists and musicians exploring her work, her reputation is now on the rise. Matthew Sweet is joined by critic and author Chris Power, Carole Sweeney, who researches experimental fiction, Sally Marlow, who studies the psychology of addiction and is Radio 3’s researcher in residence, and the literary scholar Victoria Walker, who founded the Anna Kavan Society.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

You might also be interested in an episode of Words and Music curated by Sally Marlow exploring ideas about addiction and intoxication being broadcast in January.

Free Thinking has a playlist called Prose, Poetry and Drama where you can find plenty of conversations about other authors including John Cowper Powys, Sylvia Plath, Claude McKay, ETA Hoffmann https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p047v6vh

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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Free Thinking

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