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Last broadcast on Wed, 21 Jan 2009, 21:15 on BBC Radio 3.
Synopsis
Iasbel Hilton talks to Daniel Tammet, author of Embracing The Wide Sky, the second in a volume of memoirs about growing up and living with Asperger's Syndrome. He traces his life story from difficult childhood through adolescence to adult independence and subsequent career success. Tammet is an autistic savant - one of eight children born to working-class parents - who is capable of incredible feats of mental arithmetic and memorisation. In the space of one week he learned Icelandic, and he can recite the number pi up to the 22,514th digit, breaking the European record. Tammet's condition is complicated by the fact that he also experiences synaesthesia, which enables him to feel numbers and words as shapes and colours.
Daniel Tammet
Presenter Isabel Hilton talks to Daniel Tammet, owner of what has been described as the "most remarkable mind on the planet", about his new book Embracing the Wide Sky. As one on the world's few autistic savants he famously learned Icelandic in a week but, in his book, he argues that the differences between savant and non-savant minds have been exaggerated and that all of us are capable of incredible feats of memory and imagination.
Embracing the Wide Sky by Daniel Tammet is published by Hodder & Stoughton
Civilians in War
Has the killing of civilians always been regarded as a war crime? AC Grayling and Paul Beaver are in the studio as Night Waves examines the changing attitudes and conventions governing the killing of civilians in conflict.
2666 by Roberto Bolano
This week sees the British publication of ‘2666’ - the last work of the celebrated Chilean writer Roberto Bolano who died 5 years ago at the age of 50. Bolano is regarded by many as the most important Latin-American writer since Gabriel García Márquez and this book, nine hundred pages long, has been percieved to be his greatest achievement, despite breaking most of the laws of fiction. Writer, journalist, and expert on Latin American literature, Nick Caistor, discusses the novel.
2666 by Roberto Bolano is published by Picador
Letter
We hear from Lijia Zhang about the cave houses, or ‘yadong’ in China’s Shanxi province. Born out of poverty and necessity, the homes are now a tourist attraction, protected under a nation-wide cultural relics rescue programme. BBC China editor, Chen Shirong joins us to discuss the action taken by contemporary China to preserve its heritage.
Broadcast
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Wed 21 Jan 200921:15
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