Shane Koyczan at the Book Festival

EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK
FESTIVAL

Friday, AUGUST
22nd 2008

7- 8.15pm in
the

HIGHLAND PARK
SPIEGELTENT

SHANE
KOYCZAN took the audience by storm at his
first ever appearance in Britain at the EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL in
2005.

Since then he has
toured his native Canada and parts of the USA and visited the Hay Literary
Festival, appeared at Battersea Arts Centre, at Bookslam and at clubs in London.
Last year he appeared at the Writers Festivals of Sydney, Melbourne and
Auckland, as well as the Queensland Poetry Festival. Recently he wowed his
35,000 audience on Canada Day with a specially-commissioned work which he
performed at the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa.

His latest work is
a novel in verse. STICKBOY deals with the underdog and
what can happen. An overweight schoolboy, living with his grandparents, gets
bullied at school - even the headmaster can't, or won't, defend
him.

‘He was two years
older than  me,

Chris had been left behind,                                                                                                                                
like the skin of some reptile that had been
shed.

Koyczan is no
ordinary performer and his work is not limited to one area. Words like
‘stunning' and ‘compelling' have been used countless times. On hearing him for
the first time you are punched in the gut by his political verse, by his satire,
yet also strangely touched with tender warmth by his beautiful, gentle love
lyrics and deeply moving poems about life - so many aspects of life - and death.
Seldom has one poet had such a varied subject matter and style, yet he can and
does put this across in a most arresting manner, be it politics, war, personal
family tragedy, the loss of a mother, or an ode to a loved one.

‘My fingers were
sticks of dynamite with

grenades for knuckles.

My chest was a brick of C4,

My knees and elbows were blasting caps -

all of it wired into an alarm-clock head,

whose gears,

wheels,

and cogs

finally clicked past all thoughts
of past,

and future,

and settled on the concept of now
...'

SHANE KOYCZAN will
be in Edinburgh and available for interview on 21st August

For more
information please contact:           
Fiona Graham:

tel: 0131 346 8607 or mobile: 07748 782 058              email: [email protected]