His Dub materials:Philip Pullman, who with characteristic verve has decided to retell in his new book the life of no less than Jesus, is coming to Ireland next month as a trailer event to this year's Dublin Writers' Festival. Part novel, part history, part fairy tale, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christwill be published by Canongate at the beginning of April.
Pullman, whose His Dark Materialstrilogy has been published in 39 languages, will be in conversation with Fintan O'Toole and reading from his new work in the Edmund Burke Theatre, Trinity College, on April 17th at 3pm (12, or 10 concessions, booking at projectartscentre.ie).
The full line-up for the festival proper, from June 1st to 6th, will also be announced in April. The headline event, at 8pm on June 1st, will see British novelist Ian McEwan teamed with American ecologist and futurist Stewart Brand at the National Concert Hall. McEwan's new satirical novel, Solar, though comic, is about the threat to the world from global warming, so he's well-matched with Brand, founder of 1960s publication the Whole Earth Catalog, who also has a new book out, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto. This will be the first time the pair have spoken together publicly, and on the agenda will be the role literature and science play in relation to environmental issues. Tickets for this event cost 20, 15, and concessionary rates. Booking at 01-4170000 and nch.ie.
The ‘serious fun’ review
The non-profit quarterly, the Paris Review, has a new editor. Next month Lorin Stein succeeds Philip Gourevitch, who held this most prestigious of literary editorships for five years.
An editor and writer, Stein, who is 36, has worked at publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux since 1998, editing such authors as Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Franzen, Denis Johnson, Richard Price and James Wood. He has also overseen works in translation, including the novels of Roberto Bolaño. Stein's reviews of fiction and poetry, and his translations from French, have appeared in the New York Review of Books, Harper's, the London Review of Booksand the New Republic.
Gourevitch, best known for his book of reportage on genocide in Rwanda, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, will return to writing full-time. Under his editorship, the Review's circulation grew by nearly 200 per cent, advertising revenue quadrupled and the publication won its first National Magazine Award – great news in an era when times are tough for journals of this kind.
Of his new post, Stein says: "The Paris Reviewis an institution like nothing else in American letters. It stands for the newest, the best, the most daring in writing and art, and that's been the case now for more than 50 years. To be entrusted with that tradition is a true honour . . . So many things about the way we read, write, and publish are in flux at this moment. The Paris Review is in a unique position to guide readers through the noise to what the late Terry Southern – a frequent contributor – used to call 'quality lit'. The idea of literature as serious fun – that's what I'm committed to, and it's always been at the heart of this magazine." The Paris Review– most widely known for its famous interview series, now being serially published in book form – was founded in Paris in 1953 by a group that included George Plimpton, who edited it from then until his death in 2003.
Meanwhile, the annual Paris ReviewRevel will be held on April 13th at the Cipriani restaurant on New York's 42nd Street. Chaired by Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, the event will honour novelist Philip Roth. This year's winner of the Plimpton Prize for new fiction will be announced then too.
