The Edinburgh World Writers` Conference has provoked a strong reaction, online and in the press. We’ve gathered links to some of the coverage here – please feel free to add to these in the comments!
In preparation for the conference, the Guardian wrote an article on the 1962 conference, giving insight into how the conference changed the world of literature as have the BBC. The transcriptions of the speeches themselves are also available.
- Adhaf Soueif – Should Literature be Political?
- Ali Smith: Style vs content?
- Irvine Welsh: Is there such a thing as a national literature?
- Patrick Ness: Censorship in the internet age
- China Miéville: The future of the novel
The Financial Times has blogged about the conference, and there have been a number of articles in the Guardian:
- George Szirtes: The death of the novel will presage a rebirth of writing
- Charlotte Higgins: Social media and online comments ‘causing writers to self-censor’ – continuing from Patrick Ness’ speech.
The New York Times has carried two thoughtful and fascinating responses to the Conference from our delegates Manu Joseph – Where Will Literature Go From Here? and Elif Shafak : Writers’ Quandary: Create or Report?
There was an enthusiastic response on social media too – with over a thousand tweets with #worldwritersconf. The conversation was kicking off before the debate too, with our twitter interview with writer Nicola Morgan.
As ever, if you’ve missed any of the debate, full videos of the conference are available on this site, with highlights from the conference available as a podcast from the Guardian Books Podcast.
Next stops: Berlin, 15/16 September & Cape Town 20/21 Sept, followed by Toronto, Krasnoyarsk, Cairo, Jaipur and many more.