Edinburgh Book Festival 2024

 

EIBF 2024

Since 2006 I have attended the EIBF. I would enjoy the fun, exuberance and festivities of the high street and after the walk down the mound and along George street to the relative calm and seclusion of the tree shaded book festival. A restorative juxtaposition.

 

Here I found a place of quiet reflection, big debate, colourful diversity, spontaneous conversations, intellectual challenge, famous faces, questioning politics. A place to anaylse or be informed. Intellectual freedoms and debates. There is also art, science, sport, history, economic and music and much more besides. It’s a place to refresh and for new ideas and interactions. .

 

EIBF was begun in 1983

EIBF is both national and international – with many well known Scottish authors – Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Alexander McCall Smith, Liz Lochhead, Christopher Brookmyre. Richard Holloway -  and also big names international names such as Elif Shakaf, Joseph Stiglitz, Margaret Atwood, Noam Chomsky and many more.

 

Neil Gaiman

Rachel Long

Simon Callow

This year the world leading book festival anticipates its brand new venue at the historic building next to the meadows  - with an expanded new outdoor Courtyard, the return of the Speigel tent and the Children’s tent in the courtyard, with lots of events and free activities to spark ideas and creativity.

Plus major events at the McEwan hall and food events at Elliott’s studio, Sciennes rd. 

 

My Top memories - One evening the Speigel tent was packed to hear an impromptu set by the Nile Rodgers! I felt so lucky to be there. He told stories of starting in Sesame street – and in-between played his songs with those very well kent riffs!

Another time was being mistaken for the famous Irish poet Seamus Heaney;s wife, on entering the book festival café, when Heaney we just ahead of me! 

 

I attend EIBF each year and its an unmatched place for informed debate, intellectual collaboration and creative thinking. Why are green activists targeting a place of free and open ideas for our future? When there are so many fake, ignorant click baits on so much of online media?

Ocean Vuong

This years theme is 'Future Tense' with a new venue at the Futures Institute – where Edinburgh’s famous Royal Infirmary once stood. And a new Scots festival director, Jenny Niven

 

Niven describes the Edinburgh festival as, “One of high octane and venerable, raucous and transformative, thoughtful and spontaneous….Is what brings the city to life, creating a playground for anyone who curiosity get the better of them. For ideas to take centre stage.”

“In a moment of such divisions and opposition – democracy thrives on good information, sanguine exchange  - the art of really listening and your voice deserves to be heard.”

TICKETS EIBF 2024 - https://www.edbookfest.co.uk/

 

**There will be several book festival themes - 

 

Future Tense - A toast to the future/ brilliant fiction/ future library/ generations/ data/ future politics/ imaginative realm.

How to live a meaningful life

Voterarma

Justified sinner

 

A Canon of Scottish literature

 

Scottish literature over long eras has been neglected or deliberately obscured,  so securing its place in the firmament is a kind of redress, a reclamation. “ Alan Riach

Language expresses who we are, 

A canon is a form of cultural empowerment, “any canon of Scottish literature is a form of cultural reclamation, a resistance to the canonical weight of English, or Anglo-American, or Anglophile literatures in English, what used to be called commonwealth literature.”

Lewis Grassic Gibbons

RL Stevenson

Galt, Gibbon, Mackay Brown, Oliphant, Spark, Janice Galloway, AL Kennedy, Jackie Kay, Ali Smith, Scott, RL Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, Irvine Welsh, JM Barrie,…..Celtic folklore, ghost stories, landscapes of Highlands, western isles, rich histories of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Over the 1700s many poets worked to reclaim and keep alive Scots voices and ballads, - Allan Ramsey, Robert Burns, Robert Fergusson.  

**In 1800s, Privy Council in Westminster, created the Scottish Education Department, to teach English (to replace the Church of Scotland, who taught Scots and Gaelic). The plan was cultural change. At that time Scots spoke Scots or Gaelic or both.  

In 1911, the Scottish Education Department moved to Edinburgh. English was then used to deliberately destroy Scots culture and to eradicate “Scottishness.” In 1950s Gaelic teaching was stopped, - and only English was taught. In some counties of Scotland today most English teachers are non-Scots. 

 

Scots should be taught in schools as a second language – to protect our history and culture. In the EU children are taught their own language and English as the language of western international business. 

 

The importance of Scottish literature

WHY has Scottish literature not been explored as confidently as other literatures. 

“The subject needs to be more widely known and discussed with more confidence and curiosity.... There has been work since 1980s, and more needs to be done." Alan Riach 

 

At college down Edinburgh Royal mile, I studied French author Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, and American poet Sylvia Plath, when I specialized in English, at school I studied Chaucer, Shakespeare, and novels Catch 22, English novelist Jane Austen. The union 1707 was basically an elite project begun under James VI – to incorporate Scottish history, literature and religion into the English system. Many rebelled – poets Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Robert Burns), Covenanters, academics. Holyrood must protect Scots literature and Scots language, so its taught in schools alongside English.  

 

All this began with the elite project under James VI, at a meeting of clan chiefs on Iona, when it was agreed that every eldest son would be educated in England. 

 

Robert Fergusson

**BOOKS

Why Scottish literature matters? Professor Carla Sussi

 

SCOTTISH LITERATURE – from poets

And scholars such as George Buchannan, who wrote of democracy for all. 

American founding father – John Witherspoon, 

Our great Bard Robert Burns, Scots authors - 

And todays many acclaimed Scots academics, authors, artists, musicians and innovators. Scots literature and Scots voices do matter and have unique contributions to make.  Alongside scientific discoveries and one of the world\s first surgeons and medical schools. 

 

Douglas Stuart

**SCOTS Booker Prize winners

 

Disgracefully as usual in a Time article there is no mention of Scotland’s recent Booker prize winners. The Scottish literary scene boasts several Booker prize winners – 2020 Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain, 1994 James Kelman’s How Late It Was, How Late. 

Plus Booker shortlisted authors – Ali Smith, Andrew O’Hagan, AL Kennedy, Graham McCrea Burnett, Muriel Spark. World famous Scots novelists of modern times include –Iain Banks, Val McDermid, Irvine Welsh, Ian Rankin, Louise Welsh, Liz Lochhead, Alan Bisset, Chris Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Alexander McColl Smith, Alasdair Gray, Janice Galloway, William McIlcanney, Maggie O’Farrell, 

 

Famous Scots writers of the past – Arthur Conan Doyle, J M Barrie, John Buchan, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Boswell, John Barbour, Adam Smith. 

 

Hackett quotes Irish writer Magee, “The English may be too comfortable to write great novels.”  

At least six times in her article she labels ‘Britain/ England’ as one and the same, the England label can never include Scots or the Welsh and we’ll never regard Britain as England as our cultural or historic home, even though so many Scots remain in ignorance of Scotland’s rich histories of which we might be proud. Its time Londoners woke up to this reality. 

Our creative stories, arts and music are intrinsic to our shared voices and view of self.

 

Perhaps creative thinkers either can’t afford or don’t want to be in London. In ‘Britain/ England’ mind-set little exists outside of London. In the 80s London boasted a thriving literary scene around Soho. But today’s London is dominated in its skyline by foreign oligarchs empty high-rises, populist musicals, global chain outlets and over priced art. 

 

 

**BOOKS

Anthology of Scottish stories – Gerard Caruthers

Scottish literature, an introduction – Alan Riach.

The Fair Botanist – Sara Sheridan

 

Scottish Pastoral: Robert Burns and British Romanticism – 

Black & White Photos at Edinburgh book festival

Mark Baeumont

Tarqi Ali

Some portraits from the Edinburgh international book festival, because of their contrast go well into black and white, which is my favourite art form. 

 

We’ve had many famous faces and well known authors from across Scotland, the UK and the world, over the past twelve years. 

 

While some images only work in colour. 

Alan Cummings

Isabel Greenburg

Karl Ove Knausgaard

Katherine Quarmby

Neil Gaiman

I love the old-fashioned, graphic simplicity and impact of the black and white image. Or the way they capture textures, shadows and expression. 

Paul Muldoon

Ahdaf Souief-Andrew

Gao Xingjian

ian bell

Rowan Hisayo

Edinburgh Book Festival 2022!

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2022 returns

with 600 events, 550 authors, 50 countries – under the banner “All Together Now”.

 

EIBF returns with a full program this year and hopes to recreate that buzz, after the Lockdowns. To build on the hybrid format developed over two years of pandemic – with live, in-person events also available to steam online.

 

For the first time since 2019, nearly all events will be live on stage in Edinburgh and will add a new venue at Central Hall - a 700+ seat theatre space in the heart of the city and a 5 minute walk from the Festival Village at Edinburgh College of Art.

 EIBF has re-located from its Charlotte square site (since 1982) – to save the 120 trees, the festival has been hurting their roots with the amount of foot fall: this has been an ecological decision. The festival’s new home will be the Edinburgh University Future’s building which will offer both enough indoor and outdoor space and a village green space.

This year the festival takes place at the Edinburgh art college Lauriston place.

 

*EIBF director Nick Barley  - “We’ve learned a great deal since 2019 – the world has changed immeasurably with the pandemic and war in Europe – but we’re also beginning to imagine what a better future should look like. Exploring these issues in inspiring conversations with scientists, historians, poets and novelists is exactly where the book festival comes into its own.

 

Ruby Wax

Nile Rodgers & Irvine Welsh

AUTHORS for 2022 – Ali Smith, Alexander McCall Smith, Julian Barnes.

Nobel peace prize winner Maria Ressa, Outlander Diana Gabaldon, linguist Noam Chomsky, director Armando iannucci. Meg Mason and many more.

FM Nicola sturgeon in conversation with Louise Welsh and Brian Cox (of Succession fame)

 

The festival plans to be more inclusive with Stories and Scarm – for all to tell our own stories, such a Syrian refugees. The festival has been encouraging people from all backgrounds. 

PLUS Val McDermid with her new book 89, which charts Scotland history via a thriller;  Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet, her new book set in the Medici Renaissance. 

Douglas Stuart, author of Young Mungo, in conversation with Ian Rankin, 

Music – Martha Wainwright, Jarvis Cocker, Vishti Bunyan, Ricky Ross, Stuart Cosgrove.

Alan Cummings

Also discussions on the role of Europe, impact of war with Ukrainian historian Sarhii Plokky.

**PLUS the large Children’s Book Festival with its

Baillie Gifford program – Julia Donaldson, Cressida Cowell, Michael Morpurgo. And new super heroes, Little Badman and Stunt Boy.

 

'Come together' for conversations with storytellers, musicians, politicians, actors, chefs, illustrators and more this August. Attend live in-person events in Edinburgh or watch events at home, 

**Tickets  https://www.edbookfest.co.uk

 

John Byrne

Ian Rankin

Alexander MacColl Smith

Seamus Heaney

Edinburgh International book festival 2021

August 14-30 2021

After the challenging times, Edinburgh international book festival launches its 2021 program – "Onwards and Upwards" consisting of both online and live events.  With more than 250 events , including the extensive children’s program. 

TICKETS - 

 https://www.edbookfest.co.uk

 

EIBF Online events 

offer the opportunity to chat with fellow book lovers and connect with authors by asking questions in our live Q&As. You can also catch up on events at a time that suits, and online programme, so you needn't worry about missing out. 

Scottish authors include Tom Devine, Ali Smith, Alexander McCall Smith,  Ian Rankin, Douglas Stuart,

Including events with Nobel Prize winners Amartya Senand Kazuo Ishiguro, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Booker Prize winners Salman Rushdie, Bernardine Evaristo, Richard Flanagan and Scotland's own Douglas Stuart (with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon) and many more.

The EIBF is the world’s premier book festival begun in 1982.

Edinburgh in a Unesco city of literature and each August EIBF welcomes a wide variety of authors  from Scotland and internationally. I’ve met many famous faces here, which at first is a strange experience.  

Words and stories are our passports to a better, fairer world. Imagination is free! Whether the words are carried in song, in poetry, in political debate, in images, or in stories, in fairy-tales, history, theories, journalism or truth.