Favourite Themes: The Future of the Novel
Highlights from what became one of the most popular themes of the Conference, The Future of the Novel, are collected together for you
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When I spoke at the end of the last session of the Conference in Edinburgh last year, by way of a sort of summary, I quoted those wonderful lines of Stephen Spender, that were published in Angela Bartie Eleanor Bell’s 2012 book about the original writer’s conference in 1962. “I [...]
Favourite Themes: A National Literature
Highlights from what became one of the most popular themes of the Conference, A National Literature, are collected together for you
Last year I was immensely privileged to attend five days of the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference in Edinburgh. What writers, what brains, what passions were brought to those five days! It was all very stimulating—perhaps slightly too much to digest in such a short time, on top of the normal [...]
Junot Diaz is an early bird, it seems. He first suggests a call at 5.30am his time, which later gets changed for 8.30am due to our schedule, not his. But then, if in the last few years your literary output has been rewarded with, among many others, the Pulitzer Prize [...]
Last weekend, as part of our celebrations at Edinburgh International Book Festival marking one year of the Conference, the British Council announced £5000 worth of grants to writers who have participated in the project, for work related to either the Conference themes or the countries it has visited. The writers receiving [...]
Sema Kaygusuz was born in 1972 in Samsun, Turkey. Due to her father’s itinerant military career, she lived in various regions across Turkey. A wide range of folk tales, legends and stories remain her greatest sources of inspiration. She is the author of four critically acclaimed collections of short stories, [...]
The Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference 2012-13 is a remarkable project, unrivalled in its scope and depth. I feel honoured to create an artwork to celebrate the conference at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where the conversation began. My first thought was to capture the excitement I felt when I first [...]
Before talking at the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference in Kuala Lumpur recently I had never particularly considered myself an ‘English Writer’. My family on one side are Irish, the other Welsh. I was born in the North of England and now live in the South. I spent many years in [...]
Benjamin Markovits, recently announced as one of Granta magazine’s Best Young British Novelists, has published six published novels including the highly acclaimed trilogy on the life of Lord Byron: Imposture, A Quiet Adjustment and Childish Loves. He was brought up in Texas, London and Berlin and was at one time [...]
Ben McConnell attended the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference in St Malo, 20 – 22nd May 2013. For more than twenty years, the literary & film festival Étonnants-Voyageurs has summoned francophone writers from far and wide to join in the sleepy seaside medieval city of Saint-Malo to discuss the vital elements [...]
José Rodrigues dos Santos is a bestselling author of ten novels, including Portuguese blockbusters ‘Codex 632′ and ‘The Einstein Enigma’, both long listed for the 2010 and 2012 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award respectively. José is also a journalist, and presents RTP’s Evening News. As a war reporter he has covered [...]
There can be no doubt there is such a thing as a national literature. And there is certainly a national literature of Trinidad and Tobago. Though we may doubt whether some aspects of the idea of the nation state truly hold anymore in this increasingly globalised world, we may not [...]
Please note: We regret to announce that the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference Cairo, originally postponed from December 8th – 9th 2012, will not be rescheduled. We will publish the keynote speeches by Sahar El Mougy and Tamim al-Barghouti on the EWWC website, where comments and responses will be welcomed. In [...]
“Fifty years ago, a dynamic series of talks on literature emerged in Edinburgh. A gathering of writers from around the world brought pressing questions surrounding literature’s purpose to the fore, prioritizing these lively, oft-raucous debates and driving conversations that had resonances not just in Scottish letters, but in global discussion. [...]
The NGC Bocas Lit Fest, Trinidad Saturday 27 April 11am A National Literature? Keynote by: Marlon James. Panelists : Irvine Welsh, Hannah Lowe and Vahni Capildeo, moderated by Marina Warner. The debate on national literature at the Bocas Lit Fest was opened by Marlon James’ keynote address in which he spoke against the idea of “a single story” [...]
Irvine Welsh – a name recognised the world over due to the phenomenal success, and ongoing resonance, of his debut novel ‘Trainspotting’. Welsh burst onto the scene in 1993 with his tale of heroin use and its associated victims set in a 1980s Edinburgh a long long way, figuratively, from [...]
Our friends at British Council Belgium interviewed novelist Stella Duffy last month on the occasion of the EWWC Brussels event: “In Belgium for the first time last month, Stella was here to take part in the Brussels edition of the Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference (EWWC), a series of events bringing [...]