|
Edinburgh International Book Festival
The Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) is a book festival that takes place in the last three weeks of August every year in Charlotte Square in the centre of Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh. Billed as ''The largest festival of its kind in the world'', the festival hosts a concentrated flurry of cultural and political talks and debates, along with its well-established children's events programme. It coincides with the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as well as the other events that comprise the Edinburgh Festival. Nick Barley is the Director. History The first Book Festival took place in a tent in Edinburgh in 1983. Initially a biennial event, it began to be held annually in 1997. It is a large (225,000 visitors in 2015) and growing international event, central to Edinburgh's acclaimed August arts celebrations. Perhaps partly as a result of this, Edinburgh was named the first UNESCO City of Literature in 2004. The Festival in C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Festival
A literary festival, also known as a book festival or writers' festival, is a regular gathering of writers and readers, typically on an annual basis in a particular city. A literary festival usually features a variety of presentations and readings by authors, as well as other events, delivered over a period of several days, with the primary objectives of promoting the authors' books and fostering a love of literature and writing. Writers' conferences are sometimes designed to provide an intellectual and academic focus for groups of writers without the involvement of the general public. There are many literary festivals held around the world. A non-exhaustive list is set out below, including dates when a festival is usually held (where available). List of literary festivals Notable literary festivals include: Africa * Port Harcourt Book Festival, October 20–25 Asia Asia-Pacific *Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF), held annually at Ubud, Bali in Indonesia (www.ubudw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franz Ferdinand (band)
Franz Ferdinand are a Scottish rock band formed in Glasgow in 2002. The band's original line-up was composed of Alex Kapranos (lead vocals, guitar), Nick McCarthy (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Bob Hardy (bass guitar, backing vocals), and Paul Thomson (drums, percussion, backing vocals). Julian Corrie (keyboards, guitar, backing vocals) and Dino Bardot (guitar, backing vocals) joined the band in 2017 after McCarthy left during the previous year, and Audrey Tait (drums) joined the band after Thomson left in 2021. The band is one of the more popular post-punk revival bands, garnering multiple UK top 20 hits. They have been nominated for several Grammy Awards and have received two Brit Awards – winning one for Best British Group – as well as one NME Award. The band's first two singles, " Darts of Pleasure" and " Take Me Out", peaked within the top 50 on the UK Singles Chart. "Take Me Out" charted in several countries and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay " Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her best-known works include the critical works '' Against Interpretation'' (1966), '' Styles of Radical Will'' (1968), '' On Photography'' (1977), and '' Illness as Metaphor'' (1978), as well as the fictional works '' The Way We Live Now'' (1986), '' The Volcano Lover'' (1992), and '' In America'' (1999). Sontag was active in writing and speaking about, or travelling to, areas of conflict, including during the Vietnam War and the Siege of Sarajevo. She wrote extensively about photography, culture and media, AIDS and illness, human rights, and leftist ideology. Her essays and speeches drew controversy, and she has been described as "one of the most influential critics of her generation." Early life and education Sontag was born Susan Rosen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darren Shan
Darren O'Shaughnessy (; born 2 July 1972), is an Irish writer and novelist. He is best known for his young adult fiction series '' The Saga of Darren Shan'', ''The Demonata'', and ''Zom-B'', published under the pseudonym Darren Shan. The former was adapted into a manga series from 2006 to 2009 as well as a live-action film in 2009, with a prequel series, ''The Saga of Larten Crepsley'', being released from 2010 to 2012. O'Shaughnessy has published other children's books as Darren Shan, including '' Koyasan'', and '' The Thin Executioner'', and his newest series is called '' Archibald Lox''. In the past, O'Shaughnessy has also published novels for adults under the Darren Shan pseudonym, but since 2014 he has released his work for older readers under the name of Darren Dash. Early life and education O'Shaughnessy was born in St Thomas’ Hospital in London, opposite the Houses of Parliament. At the age of three, he started school at English Martyrs' near the Elephant and Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie's second novel, ''Midnight's Children'' (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize. After his fourth novel, '' The Satanic Verses'' (1988), Rushdie became the subject of several assassination attempts and death threats, including a '' fatwa'' calling for his death issued by Ruhollah Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iran. Numerous killings and bombings have been carried out by extremists who cite the book as motivation, sparking a debate about censorship and religiously motivated violence. On 12 August 2022, a man stabbed Rushdie after rushing o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ian Rankin
Sir Ian James Rankin (born 28 April 1960) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for his Inspector Rebus novels. Early life Rankin was born in Cardenden, Fife. His father, James, owned a grocery shop, and his mother, Isobel, worked in a school canteen. He was educated at Beath High School, Cowdenbeath. His parents were horrified when he then chose to study literature at university, as they had expected him to study for a trade. Encouraged by his English teacher, he persisted and graduated in 1982 from the University of Edinburgh, where he also worked on a doctorate on Muriel Spark but did not complete it. He has taught at the university and retains an involvement with the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He lived in Tottenham, London, for four years and then rural France for six while he developed his career as a novelist. Before becoming a full-time novelist, he worked as a grape picker, swineherd, taxman, alcohol researcher, hi-fi journalist, college secretary and punk m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter (; 10 October 1930 – 24 December 2008) was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include '' The Birthday Party'' (1957), '' The Homecoming'' (1964) and '' Betrayal'' (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include '' The Servant'' (1963), ''The Go-Between'' (1971), '' The French Lieutenant's Woman'' (1981), '' The Trial'' (1993) and ''Sleuth'' (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works. Pinter was born and raised in Hackney, east London, and educated at Hackney Downs School. He was a sprinter and a keen cricket player, acting in school plays and writing poetry. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but did not complete the course. He was fined f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toni Morrison
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, '' The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' Song of Solomon'' (1977) brought her national attention and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 1988, Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for ''Beloved'' (1987); she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. Born and raised in Lorain, Ohio, Morrison graduated from Howard University in 1953 with a B.A. in English. She earned a master's degree in American Literature from Cornell University in 1955. In 1957 she returned to Howard University, was married, and had two children before divorcing in 1964. Morrison became the first black female editor in fiction at Random House in New York City in the late 1960s. She developed her own reputation as an author in the 1970s and '80s. Her work ''Beloved'' was made into a film in 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Monbiot
George Joshua Richard Monbiot ( ; born 27 January 1963) is a British writer known for his environmental and political activism. He writes a regular column for ''The Guardian'' and is the author of a number of books. Monbiot grew up in Oxfordshire and studied zoology at the University of Oxford. He then began a career in investigative journalism, publishing his first book '' Poisoned Arrows'' in 1989 about human rights issues in West Papua. In later years, he has been involved in activism and advocacy related to various issues, such as climate change, British politics and loneliness. In ''Feral'' (2013), he discussed and endorsed expansion of rewilding. He is the founder of The Land is Ours, a campaign for the right of access to the countryside and its resources in the United Kingdom. Monbiot was awarded the Global 500 in 1995 and the Orwell Prize in 2022. Early life Born in Kensington, Monbiot grew up in Rotherfield Peppard, Oxfordshire. His father, Raymond Monbiot, is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yann Martell
Yann Martel, (born 25 June 1963) is a Canadian author who wrote the Man Booker Prize–winning novel ''Life of Pi'', an international bestseller published in more than 50 territories. It has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and spent more than a year on the bestseller lists of the ''New York Times'' and ''The Globe and Mail'', among many other best-selling lists. ''Life of Pi'' was adapted for a movie directed by Ang Lee, garnering four Oscars including Best Director and winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. Martel is also the author of the novels '' The High Mountains of Portugal'',Knopf Canada: The High Mountains of Portugal Penguin Random House site. Retrieved 24 March 2016.Charles, Ron (21 January 2016 [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Candia McWilliam
Candia Frances Juliet McWilliam (born 1 July 1955) is a Scottish author. Her father was the architectural writer and academic Colin McWilliam. Literary career Born in Edinburgh, McWilliam was educated at St George's School for Girls in the city and Girton College, Cambridge, where she obtained first class honours. Her first novel, ''A Case of Knives'', published in 1988, was the winner of a Betty Trask Prize. Her second novel, ''A Little Stranger'', was published in 1989. Both books won Scottish Arts Council Book Awards. '' Debatable Land'', published in 1994, won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and in 1998 its Italian translation won the Premio Grinzane Cavour for the best foreign novel of the year. McWilliam was a judge of the 2006 Man Booker Prize. Blindness In 2004 McWilliam admitted to an audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival that she had struggled with alcoholism. In early 2006, McWilliam began to experience the effects of blepharospasm and became severely ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Val McDermid
Valarie "Val" McDermid, (born 4 June 1955) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of novels featuring clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill in a grim sub-genre that McDermid and others have identified as Tartan Noir. Biography McDermid comes from a working-class family in Fife. She studied English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she was the first student to be admitted from a Scottish state school. After graduation she became a journalist and began her literary career as a dramatist. Her first success as a novelist, ''Report for Murder: The First Lindsay Gordon Mystery'' occurred in 1987. McDermid was inducted into the prestigious Detection Club in 2000, and won the CWA Diamond Dagger for her lifetime contribution to crime writing in the English language in 2010. She was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Sunderland in 2011. She is co-founder of the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival and the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Y ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Susan Sontag")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Toni Morrison")
_ribbon_bar.svg "Click for more on -> Yann Martell")
