This reviewer has sometimes imagined a memoir of his time with this website, its title? "Scribbling In The Dark" - a small homage to the late E.P. Thomson's "Writing By Candlelight".
Ian Rankin had to make do with a borrowed torch when summer rains and technical gremlins conspired to pitch the Edinburgh Book Festival in Charlotte Square Gardens into darkness. One wondered if results at the Royal Bank of Scotland had been sufficiently dire to get the lecky cut off, but just enough glimmered to illuminate Rankin, Professors Colin Nicholson and Laura Marcus and the prize-winners in the two categories of Fiction and Biography.
The short-lists in both categories reflected both excellence in achievement and health in publishers own lists, despite straitened times and circumstances.
Those who had made it through the initial stages in biography were:
- Arthur Miller 1915-1962, by Christopher Bigsby
- A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and their Remarkable Families, by Michael Holroyd
- Gabriel García Márquez: A Life, by Gerald Martin
- Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love by Sheila Rowbotham
- Chagall: Love and Exile, by Jackie Wullschlager
Michael Holroyd emerged a worthy winner for his intertwining of the biographies of Ellen Terry and Henry Irving, major nineteenth century actors and influential figures in the history of theatre.
The short-list for fiction comprised:
- Sputnik Caledonia, by Andrew Crumey
- A Mercy, by Toni Morrison
- The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
- A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif
- Pilcrow by Adam Mars-Jones.
Barry's remarkable re-telling of Ireland's twentieth century history emerged top of the pile, and his speech made mention of past winners, including Arnold Bennett, now little read but worth the effort of re-discovery. Filling in for James Naughtie, tied up (not literally, one hopes), in waiting for Downing Street reaction to events in Libya, Ian Rankin did his best to appease voluble Morningside matrons and the particularly hard of hearing, a number of whom struggled with the failure of the RBS Main Theatre's P A system.
However, hoity-toity a crowd of the Edimbourgeosie can become, enough of the Scots insistence on fair play and consideration of those ‘daein their best' remains to ensure, at least in this instance, a large portion of the audience remained to the end, leaving with enough to dine on over several days and weeks to come.
Full marks and commiserations to all the Book Festival team for coping professionally with events outwith their control.
Copyright Bill Dunlop 2009
First published on EdinburghGuide.com 2009