One writer described our first festival as being “of international standard with a great local tilt” and we hope we’ve been able to justify that accolade with this year’s programme which includes great international figures like the Australian novelist Alex Miller whom John Banville described as Australian literature’s best kept secret. Reviewing his latest novel, Loving, Eileen Battersby described Miller as “one of Australia’s finest writers, worthy to stand equal with the great David Malouf.” If you know Malouf but not Miller then here is your chance to remedy that situation and having recently read his last three novels, I can tell you that you will not be sorry. Alex reads with John Banville on festival Sunday.
To leaven the diet of straight readings, we offer several panel discussions this year with An Appreciation of JG Farrell whose posthumous literary reputation is currently soaring. Farrell was a potentially great Irish writer who lived on Saval Park Rd in Dalkey for a time but drowned tragically in 1979 while fishing off the West Coast of Ireland. Anne Enright, editor of the upcoming Granta Book of the Irish Short Story chairs a panel on the Irish Short Story with Roddy Doyle, Claire Keegan and Kevin Barry and a stellar panel including Tim Waterstone and the UK’s hippest publisher, Jamie Byng, will debate the future of reading in the digital age. RTE’s Sunday Miscellany will present a live edition of the show with readers from the festival and there are returns for The Beckett Address, Leviathan Political Cabaret, DLR Connections and The DLR Literary Tour. We’re also pleased to present a number of In Conversation events where established writers conduct a discussion with the featured writer. Add in fine UK writers such as Jackie Kay, Helen Simpson, Janice Galloway, Jonathan Coe, Ross Raisin, Matthew Kneale and Andrew O’Hagan and, we hope you will agree, there is a tremendous programme of events to choose from.
So to all of you book-lovers out there, do please support us just as you did last year. We look forward to seeing you in September.
Tickets will go on sale on Tuesday August 4th. The festival brochure will be available online and in local bookstores, libraries and other locations by August 4th also.
