See page 74 / 75 for booking details

Friday 15 August events for adults continued
Amnesty International
Imprisoned Writers Series
RIGHT TO FREEDOM FROM INTERFERENCE
WITH FAMILY, HOME OR CORRESPONDENCE
5.30pm – 6.15pm I Peppers Theatre
Free: Tickets available from the Box Office on the day of the event
Our daily free readings in solidarity with writers facing persecution for their
thoughts and words. Today: Writers who are imprisoned, exiled, harassed or
tortured are denied the right to enjoy a normal family life. This afternoon,
we hear the work of these writers read by Book Festival authors
including Stella Duffy.
Adam Foulds
& Jamie McKendrick
POETRY
6.00pm I Writers’ Retreat I £6.00 £4.00
Remarkable work remembering aspects of Empire. Forward Poetry Prize
winning Jamie McKendrick’s Crocodiles and Obelisks searches through the
debris of power; while newcomer Adam Foulds’s The Broken World is a
sequence telling of Britain’s repression of the Kenyan Mau Mau uprising
– astonishing and original.
Bookslam
FICTION, POETRY AND MUSIC
6.15pm – 8.15pm I Highland Park Spiegeltent I £9.00 £7.00
Bookslam has escaped its regular night in West London and come to Scotland
for August! The best performers, cool music – come and relax with a drink in
our opulent Speigeltent as writers mix with musicians in a unique night of
literary entertainment. Featuring, amongst others, leading performance poet
Patience Agbabi, energetic young Scottish writer Alan Bissett and the wit of
the award-winning Dan Rhodes.
A BOOKCASE EVENT
society
poetry
culture
Matt Frei
THE TURCAN CONNELL EVENT
6.30pm I RBS Main Theatre I £9.00 £7.00
The BBC’s charismatic and award-winning Washington correspondent
unveils the paradoxes of America’s capital: the power and the poverty, the
nations
Daniel Clay, Ross Raisin
& Mark Wernham
FIRST FICTION
7.30pm I Writers’ Retreat I £6.00 £4.00
Come and hear three exceptional new voices of our fractured times.
Ross Raisin’s God’s Own Country depicts a misfit Yorkshire teenager on the
Moors with richly idiomatic language. Daniel Clay’s Broken creates a chaotic
working class community, leaving a shattered boy and a girl in a coma.
Mark Wernham’s Martin Martin’s On The Other Side is a skewed, dystopian
vision – hilarious and frightening.
Quintin Jardine
CRIME FICTION
8.00pm I RBS Main Theatre I £9.00 £7.00
Firm festival favourite, Quintin Jardine – another one of Scotland’s suspiciously
stupendous crime writers – returns with the latest outing for DCC Bob Skinner.
In Aftershock, told with all his mastery and flair, a young woman on a golf
course appears to be the victim of a serial killer. It is all getting very close
to home…
Stories in Stone
LITERATURE AND LANDSCAPE
8.30pm I ScottishPower Studio Theatre I £9.00 £7.00
Our beautiful capital is a city built on books, uniquely recognised by UNESCO
as both a World Heritage Site and City of Literature. Take a tour around the
Old and New Towns exploring the literary resonance of Edinburgh’s historic
buildings, streets and spaces, with narrators, exquisite images, discussion and
more. Author and director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre Donald Smith,
and acclaimed Scottish writers Stewart Conn and James Robertson, uncover
the heritage, hidden secrets and literary power of what lies around us.
In association with Edinburgh World Heritage
and Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature
A BOOKCASE EVENT
fiction
Gavin Francis
travel
weapons which could obliterate the world and the teenage shooting sprees, & Francis Spufford
the microcosm of the contradictions of the USA. Come and meet an THE TOWNHOUSE COLLECTION EVENT
experienced and insightful analyst. Chaired by Allan Little.
8.30pm I Peppers Theatre I £9.00 £7.00
The Arctic and Antarctic exert their inexorable attraction in this unmissable
Salley Vickers
fiction event. Edinburgh writer Gavin Francis travels throughout Arctic Europe in
FINE FICTION
True North; while Francis Spufford has gathered together the finest writing
on polar exploration past and present, and the eerie hold of the regions of
6.45pm I Peppers Theatre I £9.00 £7.00
(melting) ice over our collective imagination.
Salley Vickers’s Miss Garnet’s Angel – a resonant story of achieving new life and
transformation through art – was a remarkable debut and her reputation has
grown with each succeeding novel. Now she reinterprets the myth of Oedipus
(she is a former psychoanalyst) in Where Three Roads Meet – an enduringly
Spiegelbar
powerful fable about blindness and knowledge. Chaired by James Jauncey. MUSIC
From 9.00pm I Highland Park Spiegeltent I Free – open to all
Fiction on a Pedestal:
literature Come and enjoy a relaxing evening with live music in our atmospheric
travelling ballroom. A great place to have a drink and end your festival day.
Is the Novel Overrated
The band line-up is available from the Information Desk in the Entrance Tent.
THE LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS EVENT
Sponsored by Highland Park
7.00pm I ScottishPower Studio Theatre I £9.00 £7.00
Is the novel an overrated and moribund art form Why should we care
about it and where is it going An expert and passionate panel discusses
whither the novel. Come and join Anne Enright, Andrew O’Hagan, and
Marina Warner.
28 EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL BOOK FESTIVAL 9 – 25 August 2008
Book now at www.edbookfest.co.uk or 0845 373 5888 See page 74 / 75 for booking details
crime
literature
LATECOMERS WILL NOT BE ADMITTED AFTER THE START OF EVENTS & NO REFUNDS WILL BE GIVEN
EVENTS ARE 1 HOUR LONG UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED & TAKE PLACE IN CHARLOTTE SQUARE GARDENS