Edinburgh Book Festival - Picture by Tom Finney
Edinburgh International Book Festival
Charlotte Square, 9-25th August 2003
Vivien Devlin curls up in a comfy armchair to read all about the novelists and poets, crime writers and children's storytellers who will be making their way to Edinburgh for the Book Festival in August, 2003.
Introduction to the Book Festival
Any literary festival is a public indication that the arts and literature have a value in the public sphere. The community is saying, "We believe in this, and that in itself, is important."
Seamus Heaney, poet and Nobel Laureate"Books illuminate the world, open up horizons and whisk you away on astonishing journeys. We bring all of this together in the world's biggest book festival in an enchanted green garden. We invite the world's leading thinkers, new authors and Scottish writers taking their place alongside their international counterparts. Welcome to our garden of delights."
Catherine Lockerbie, Director
Like a colourful, fragrant garden itself, the Edinburgh International Book Festival in Charlotte Square has flourished and matured over the past twenty years since it was founded in 1983. Initially this was a biennial festival but popularity and demand by readers, publishers and writers have now created an annual festival to celebrate and champion the written word in all its diverse forms - fiction, biography, poetry, travel writing, philosophy, political debate, science, stage and screen, media, arts and cookery - to name a few topics which will be under discussion.
With 550 authors appearing at this year's event, Edinburgh hosts the largest book festival in the world. It takes place in the Charlotte Square Gardens, within a temporary summer village of white tents and marquees, housing theatres, bookshops, wine bar and cafes. There is also the magnificent wood panelled Spiegeltent (ilustrated here), used for author events as well as the ideal place for a relaxing drink by day, turning into a cabaret bar in the evening with musical entertainment.
Participating Authors
Under the joyfully enthusiastic and perceptive direction of director, Catherine Lockerbie, this year's selection of authors is simply - awesome. While writers come from all over the world, there is a particular emphasis on American literature, representing every style - from the sharp and sassy, big and boisterous to the creative and analytical. One major voice from the United States is John Irving, author of The World According to Garp, and the Cider House Rules, amongst many great novels. Irving is attending the Edinburgh Book Festival on an exclusive visit to Britain. Other leading American writers include Susan Sontag, novelist, social and political commentator who will be appearing at three separate events to discuss her work. The author of A Thousand Acres which won the Pulitzer prize, Jane Smiley will also be in Edinburgh to talk about and read from her new book, Good Faith.
The popular TV comedy series, Sex and the City has given creator Candace Bushnell a huge following, especially a generation of twenty and thirty something women who identify with her feisty, fashionable New Yorker singleton ladies and how they cope with and without men. Her new novel, Trading Up, is again a clever social satire on New York on love, work, success, from the female perspective.
20 countries, their writers, culture and ideas will be represented this year including three renowned novelists from South America, Paulo Coelho, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Ariel Dorfman as well as Booker Prize winner, Thomas Keneally.
Crime fiction is a very popular genre and waiting to thrill and chill the spines of readers this summer are Ian Rankin (pictured here), P.D James, Val McDermid, Quintin Jardine, Christopher Brookmyre, and Michael Dibdin amongst others, who will be describing the background to their devious and sinister plots - without giving too much away.
Two Poet Laureates
The Book Festival opens on Saturday 9th August at 10.30 with a very special literary encounter. Two Poet Laureates will take part in a joint session to discuss their poetry, words and wisdom. Edwin Morgan (pictured here) is Scotland's Poet Laureate and Andrew Motion is the Poet Laureate for the United Kingdom, appointed by the Queen.
Another very interesting and must-see event from the world of poetry will be the rare appearance of Frieda Hughes, the daughter of the former Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes and his wife Sylvia Plath, two of the most powerful, original and influential poets of the 20th century. Frieda Hughes is a poet and an artist, and will be discussing and reading from her new collection Waxworks.
And from across Britain come a host of best-seller novelists - Doris Lessing, Graham Swift, Esther Freud, Sarah Dunant, Janice Galloway, Irvine Welsh, A L Kennedy and Iain Banks to name but a few.
2003 is the centenary of George Orwell's birth and there will be a series of discussions featuring such eminent scholars as D J Taylor and Bernard Crick among a panel of writers who will debate the wider aspect and legacy of his life and work. Other life stories will be told by the biographers and autobiographers of books on Oscar Wilde, AA Milne, the Beatles, Marilyn Monroe, Arthur Miller and Samuel Pepys - which in themselves make up a fascinating guest list for the Festival.
Travel and Exploration is another key subject with William Dalrymple talking about his latest journey to India to research White Mughals, Sara Wheeler on her exploration of the Antarctic, and Tom Hart Dyke with his travelling companion Paul Winder will describe their extraordinary death defying adventures in the Darien Gap, South America, where they were captured and held hostage by guerrillas for nine months.
And on a lighter note, stars of stage, TV and film will be appearing in the flesh to discuss Hollywood, Shakespeare, costume dramas and comedy. Alan Ayckbourn who writes very complex and surreal comic plays is the second most performed playwright after Shakespeare, Barry Norman will discuss his love affair with cinema, and Kate Adie, BBC's veteran foreign correspondent will look at the role of women who go to war.
In addition there will be plenty of opportunity for Book Festival goers to take part in public forum discussions on scientific and ethical topics, the media and politics.
And A Children's Book Festival
And if all that was not sufficient to whet the literary appetite, there is a full Children's Book Festival programme with dozens of favourite writers including Jacqueline Wilson, Mairi Hederwick, Debi Gliori and Michael Morpurgo.
"The Children's Book Festival is a real gem at the heart of all that's going on in Edinburgh in August. Our aim is to encourage as many children as possible to visit and discover the delights that reading can bring."
Susan Rice, Chief Executive Lloyds TSB Scotland [sponsor].So welcome to this colourful magical garden of literary delights. More information can be found on the Edinburgh Book Festival Web site.
Where else would you like to go in Scotland?
