Writers en fète:Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad, Berlin and D-Day: The Battle for Normandywill be in Ireland for this year's Dublin Writers' Festival, which runs from June 1st-6th. Credited correctly as being able to wrest, from the often dry genre of military history, page-turning books that convey the human drama involved in all conflicts, his event will be chaired by historian and author Diarmaid Ferriter.
The Dublin Revieweditor, Brendan Barrington, will chair an event with novelist David Mitchell, author of the Booker-shortlisted number9dream, whose new novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoetis out shortly. Other novelists participating include Hanif Kureishi, Ian McEwan and Yann Martel.
One of the more unusual events is at the Sugar Club on June 2nd. The Riverrun Project promises to take its audience on a bilingual sonic, visual and literary voyage through Dublin. Poets Biddy Jenkinson, Máighréad Medbh, Liam Ó Muirthile and Dermot Bolger will read new work in English and Irish about Dublin from Viking times to the surreal landscapes of post-Celtic Tiger Dublin with its ghostly empty apartment blocks and deserted housing estates. All this accompanied by new music from Seán Óg and images of today’s Dublin by Margaret Lonergan.
Niall MacMonagle will chair a session with two Irish novelists; Paul Murray, whose tragi-comic Skippy Diescame out in February, and actor and novelist John Lynch, whose second novel Falling Out of Heavenis due next month.
Does reading help shape our humanity? Three writers get together for a session on this: Sarah Bakewell, author of a new biography of the 16th century French thinker Montaigne; Declan Kiberd, whose most recent book is Ulysses and Us; and Ruth Padel, great-great-grand-daughter of Darwin, whose poetry collection Darwin: A Life in Poemsemanated from that relationship. dublinwritersfestival.com
Poetry professorship
With Michael Longley completing his three-year term as Ireland Professor of Poetry in October, the Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust is taking nominations for the next holder of the £30,000 a yearpost, which was established by the Arts Council, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, Queen’s University Belfast and University College Dublin to celebrate the contribution of Irish poets to the world of literature. The poet is attached to each of the universities in turn and gives presentations, workshops, lectures and public readings while in office.
Nominations should go to the Chairman, Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust, c/o Arts Council, 70 Merrion Square, Dublin 2, or info@irelandchairofpoetry.org by April 30th.
Cork and the world
The sixth Cork World Book Fest, which takes place next Wednesday to Saturday in Cork City Central Library on Grand Parade and in the Triskel Arts Centre, with Joseph O’Connor reading from his new novel Ghost Light, and close with a reading from poet John Montague. The reading will include four poems from Montague’s 1970’s collection Tides, which were set to music by composer and conductor Aloys Fleischmann and following Montague’s reading, mezzo-sporano Aylish Kerrigan will sing – accompanied by Dearbhla Collins – Fleischmann’s music. Other writers taking part include Simon Van Booy, author of Love Begins in Winter, which won the 2009 Frank O’Connor Award; Fintan O’Toole reading from his book Ship of Fools: How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger; American poet and US Army veteran Brian Turner, whose debut collection Here, Bullet describes his experiences in the Iraq War; Syrian poet and critic Hussein Bin Hamza; and Cork poet Leanne O’Sullivan. Tickets from Triskel Arts Centre and Cork City Libraries. See corkcitylibraries.ie and triskelartscentre.ie.
