Breakdown: Horatio Clare, Stevie Smith

Paranoia, the collateral damage on his family and the investigations he makes into drugs used to treat such a breakdown: Horatio Clare talks to Laurence Scott about his Journey through Madness, Mania and Healing. Plus the poetry of Stevie Smith (20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971). Author of the much-quoted lines Not Waving but Drowning; Stevie Smith suffered from depression and acute shyness. New Generation Thinker Noreen Masud looks at her writing.

Horatio Clare has recorded a series of different walks for BBC Radio 3. His books include The Light in the Dark: A Winter Journal; A Single Swallow; Down the Sea in Ships and his new memoir Heavy Light.
Dr Noreen Masud teaches on 20th-century fiction at Durham University. You can hear her talking about nonsense writing in this episode of Free Thinking about Dada https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k9ws and in this Sunday Feature she looks at aphorisms https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rtxb

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

(photo: James Bedford)