Various venues, Dublin, Jun 1-6 dublinwritersfestival.com
We’re still waiting to hear whether Dublin will become Unesco’s fourth City of Literature (could they really turn us down?) but, in the meantime, we have the writers’ festival, with a plethora of interesting authors from overseas rolling into town, and our own lot pulling out the stops as well.
On opening night, Ian McEwan (left, top), who has recently turned his attention to the (literally) burning issue of global warming with his novel Solar, gets together with “eco- pragmatist” Stuart Brand at the National Concert Hall. Brand was an influential hippie in the 1960s and 1970s (he hung out with Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and founded, edited and published the Whole Earth Catalogue). Nowadays he argues for science-led pragmatism (embracing urbanisation, nuclear power and biotechnology) in books such as Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto (2009).
The following night, the brilliant David Mitchell, author of Number9dream, Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green and, most recently, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, is at the Project. Acclaimed historian Anthony Beevor (Stalingrad, Berlin) is at Liberty Hall, while The Riverrun Project, a “bi-lingual sonic, visual and literary voyage through the city of Dublin”, with Dermot Bolger, Biddy Jenkinson, Máighréad Medbh and Liam Ó Muirthile, is at the Sugar Club.
On Friday, June 4th, Jennifer Johnston celebrates her 80th birthday at the Project. The following day, British feminist writer and critic Natasha Walter (left, bottom), author of The New Feminism and Living Dolls, joins Susan McKay, journalist, author and director of the National Women’s Council of Ireland, to discuss where feminism is now and what direction it might take in the future. That’s at the Project at 4pm.
At the same venue, just afterwards, Sarah Bakewell, Declan Kiberd and Ruth Padel discuss “How to Live” – and how books can help us to do it better.
Last up is Hanif Kureishi, at 8pm, and fans of his novels (including the wonderful The Buddha of Suburbia) and film scripts (My Beautiful Launderette) can hear the writer read from and talk about his new collection of short fiction.
On the final day, June 6th, Canadian author Yann Martel will unveil Beatrice and Virgil, the much-anticipated follow-up to his Booker-winning Life of Pi, at the Hugh Lane Gallery. Playwright Tom Murphy will be talking and reading at the Abbey, and later on in the theatre Gallery Press will celebrate 40 years of publishing poetry in Ireland.
