This year's Edinburgh International Book Festival takes on a globetrotting theme with a programme that Festival Director Nick Barley says is "more international than ever before". There are over 900 participants from 55 countries this year, with many of the featured books translated into English for the first time.
This year's festival programme features a hot air balloon on its cover, with a riff on Jules Verne's famous novel with the tagline "Around the World in 18 Days".
"Charlotte Square Gardens will reflect the idea of the Global Village as we welcome authors from across the planet," says Barley.
"Whether they are from Nigeria or North Korea; Colombia or China, these are writers whose stories shed light not only on the big changes in world power, but on the shifting nature of local cultures– changes that are also taking place in Scotland.”
Literary stars
As always the Edinburgh Book Festival program encompasses a swathe of subjects under the sun - from children's stories to international affairs. The best approach is to grab yourself an EIBF programme - or visit the web site - and dig in. It's free to enter the Gardens throughout the festival, but tickets to popular events can sell out quickly. Tickets go on sale at 8.30am on Tuesday 23 June 2015.
There are a number of big names that are expected to be major draws. Some leading lights in their own countries make the trip to Edinburgh this August including Spain’s Jaume Cabré whose Confessions has sold over 1 million copies, Germany’s Jenny Erpenbeck who has just won the 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the multi-award winning Helle Helle from Denmark, South Korea’s Han Kang, Alain Mabanckou from Congo and Salla Simukka, an exceptional new Young Adult author from Finland.
Marilynne Robinson, regarded as one of America’s greatest living writers, makes her first visit to Charlotte Square Gardens, as do French mathematician Cédric Villani, renowned playwright David Hare, street artist Stik and U.S. civil rights activist the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Palestinian lawyer Raja Shehadeh launches Shifting Sands, a book of powerful and engaging essays on the Middle East which grew out of a series of discussions curated by Shehadeh at the 2014 Book Festival.
Moving closer to home, historical novelist Philippa Gregory launches her new work Henry VIII’s last queen, Patrick Ness reveals his much-anticipated new novel, Val McDermid discusses her new crime novel with the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon while Pat Barker, Arne Dahl, Aleksandar Hemon, Tom Holland, John Banville and Andrew Miller also launch their new books.
Elsewhere in the programme Louis de Bernières, Joanne Harris and Etgar Keret are joined by David Mitchell, Irvine Welsh, Emily Woof, Owen Sheers, Amit Chaudhuri, previous Man Booker Prize winners Ben Okri and Howard Jacobson, Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley and historians Antony Beevor and Ferdinand Mount.
Telling their own intriguing personal stories are North Korean exile Hyeonseo Lee, comedian Paul Merton, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow who founded Mary’s Meals, Ronnie Browne from The Corries, Chinese lawyer and dissident Chen Guangcheng, former member of The Communards Reverend Richard Coles and historian Antonia Fraser.
Political content
Channel 4 Economics Editor Paul Mason discusses capitalism and a route to a fairer society with former First Minster Alex Salmond; Caroline Lucas, the Green Party’s solitary MP, explores the Westminster system; former Prime Minister Gordon Brown examines the future of Scotland and BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson takes us through his 2015 Election Diaries.
Trading Stories
As well as introducing brand new writing from across the globe, the Trading Stories strand also examines how stories travel, bringing together writers and translators for an exploration of language, identity and the myriad of international influences that have inspired and defined Scottish writing.
Marina Warner asks how fairy stories shed light on human understanding as they travel from continent to continent, Daniel Hahn, one of the world’s foremost translators, examines the creative, linguistic and political challenges required to take stories across borders. Many of the popular Reading Workshops have been inspired to focus on translated classics, such as Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina. Trading Stories is supported by the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund.
Five Guest Selectors
There are five Guest Selectors who have curated strands in this year’s programme. Internationally renowned visual artist and Mexico’s single most important cultural figure, Gabriel Orozco, offers an Insider’s Guide to Mexico and speaks to seven formidable Mexican novelists, poets and writers in a sparkling reflection of their home literary scene. Lennie Goodings, publisher of the Virago imprint for over 30 years, presents the theme of The Female Gaze, offering a challenge to the masculine view of the world which still pervades Britain’s culture. With guests including Jane Gardam, Sarah Waters and Eileen Atkins, her events discuss ageing, extremism and lost classics.
Edinburgh’s own Ian Rankin has chosen to chat to some of his favourite writers and musicians and his guests include Hollywood A-Lister Alan Cumming, musicians Viv Albertine, Edwyn Collins and Stuart David, co-founder of Belle and Sebastian. Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian’s chief culture writer, looks at the complex interaction between globalisation and xenophobia and speaks to leading classicists alongside specialists in contemporary affairs.
Finally across both the adult and children’s programmes Gill Arbuthnott, author of novels for young adults and picture books for pre-schoolers, highlights the need for us all to be science literate with guests including French physicist Christophe Galfard and Professor Robert Winston. Debi Gliori is the 2015 Illustrator in Residence.
New authors
The Book Festival continues to champion new talent and its annual First Book Award, now in its sixth year, features 55 debut novelists and short story writers.
There are renowned international authors: Melinda Nadj Abonji from Switzerland, Nigeria’s Chigozie Obioma, and Ahmet Altan from Turkey among them; exceptional home-grown talent such as Melinda Salisbury, Kate Hamer, Mark Blacklock and Simon Sylvester, and those perhaps better known for their other careers including Colin MacIntyre, Helen Lederer, Celia Imrie and Jesse Armstrong.
The winner of the First Book Award is voted for by readers and visitors to the Book Festival and announced in October.
Heaney's Beowulf, spoken word
Always exploring new ways of presenting literature, words and books, there is a strong performance element in the 2015 Festival. In a tribute to Seamus Heaney, a full length dramatic reading of his translation of Beowulf takes place in a co-production with the Tron Theatre Company.
The renowned Shakespearean and Wolf Hall actor Mark Rylance reads from Paul Kingsnorth’s novel The Wake and in a major collaboration with La Maison de la Poésie de Montreal and the Scottish Poetry Library, three leading writers from the First Nation Innu people of Northern Canada present a performance of their poems, stories and music in French and Inuktitut.
The Babble On series of Spoken Word events includes appearances from Kate Tempest and George the Poet.
Terry Waite
Terry Waite delivers The Frederick Hood Memorial Lecture, Matt Haig delivers The Siobhan Dowd Trust Memorial Lecture and the 2015 Bailey’s Prize winner Ali Smith The PEN / H G Wells Lecture.
Past and present winners of the European Union Prize for Literature discuss the power of literature across languages, the winners of the James Tait Black Prizes are revealed and in celebration of the Man Booker International Prize, translators of László Krasznahorkai’s work are joined by the Chair of the judges, Marina Warner, to discuss the 2015 winner.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival runs at Charlotte Square Gardens from Saturday 15 to Monday 31 August 2015. Tickets to all events go on sale at 8.30am on Tuesday 23 June 2015, online at www.edbookfest.co.uk, by phone on 0845 373 5888 or in person at the Box Office at the Roxburghe Hotel on George Street (on Tuesday 23 June only, thereafter at The Hub, Castlehill)