Franco-Irish festival to reveal secretsGiven that secrecy was a way of life to many in the hidden Ireland of the past, there's something particularly apt about "Secrets", the theme of this year's Franco-Irish literary festival, the annual gathering of Irish writers in English and Irish with writers from French-speaking territories and beyond.
Aptly too, many of the participants are writers with big secrets at the heart of their recent books - from those that dog the Hegarty clan in Anne Enright's The Gathering to the fatal shared secret with the power to destroy lives in post-Troubles Belfast that's at the heart of David Park's The Truth Commissioner.
But secrets aren't always bad and the festival plans to dissect love secrets too, as well as analysing how secrets are composed, how they travel and impact on people's lives, and what the difference is between a secret and hearsay. And what happens when a secret is revealed and what role do writers have in all this?
Dermot Bolger, Fred Johnston and Colette Nic Aodha are among the Irish contingent. Other participants include novelist Sorj Chalandon who was a journalist with Libération for 30 years, covering events such as the Bhophal disaster and the Klaus Barbie trial; and Phillippe Grimbert, author of the novel Un Secret and a psychoanalyst interested in whatever light his discipline can shed on social and cultural phenomena. The festival, organised by the Alliance Française and the Cultural Services of the French embassy takes place from April 18th to 20th in Dublin. www.francoirishliterary festival.com.
Rushdie to visit Dublin next month
Thankfully, the days when the fatwa put on him meant that visits anywhere by Salman Rushdie were cloaked in secrecy are well behind us, and the Dublin Writers Festival is heralding his visit to the city next month as a foretaste of the main festival in June. Rushdie will take part in an evening of readings and conversation, chaired by Fintan O'Toole. The event is at 8pm on April 20th, in the Gate Theatre, price 18. Details on 01-8744045, www.dublin
writersfestival.com. The festival runs from June 11th to 15th. The line-up includes JP Dunleavy, Tobias Wolff, Anne Enright, Helon Habila, Marian Keyes, Sebastian Barry and John Boyne.
The White House book club
If you're running for the US presidency these days you must, it seems, be an author as well as everything else. Next month sees publication in Britain by Gibson Square of Republican senator and presidential hopeful John McCain's tome Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People who Made Them. We've had Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream and Hillary Clinton's memoir Living History. In Hard Call, which came out in the US last year and is written with Mark Salter, McCain ruminates on the key 20th-century figures who've influenced him. Realising that interest on this side of the Atlantic will escalate as the November election approaches, Gibson Square is planning a major campaign to launch the title.
In the footsteps of Michael McLaverty
The Linen Hall Library, Belfast, has launched the 2008 Michael McLaverty Short Story Award for stories not exceeding 3,000 words by Irish writers. The prize is £2,000 (€2,570) and the prospect of having work published by the library. The adjudicators are Anne Tannahill and Carlo Gébler. The prize will be awarded in November. Details from www.linenhall.com.