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Confessions of a Justified Sinner

Matthew Sweet is joined by Ian Rankin and a panel of guests in Edinburgh for an extended discussion on James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

Night Waves is in Edinburgh to examine a book hailed as one of the true greats of world literature. Matthew
Sweet and guests, including writer Ian Rankin, theatre director Mark Thomson, forensic psychiatrist Anne
MacDonald and folklorist Valentina Bold, discuss James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.

It is a book with so many dimensions it has been described as the ultimate unclassifiable novel. It is a thriller with a psychological element, a political dimension and a religious spin.

Published anonymously in 1824, it contains a probing quest into the nature of religious fanaticism and Calvinist predestination and has been hugely influential. As writer Ian Rankin has noted without it there would be no Dr Jekyll or Miss Jean Brodie but it 'seems as fresh as the day it was written - and more relevant than ever.'.

45 minutes

Broadcast

  • Wed 3 Mar 2010 21:15

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