How should writers respond to war and political conflict? It's a questionthat will be at the heart of Cúirt, writes Lorna Siggins
The pups, if not the dogs, of war were already straining on their leashes. Even so, it was with some prescience that, last year, Galway Arts Centre began planning its programme for the Cúirt International Festival of Literature 2003.
Exile and political engagement could not be more timely themes. With the full cost of suffering in Iraq still to be accounted for, and forgotten conflicts such as that in the Democratic Republic of Congo continuing to take their toll, writers, artists and journalists will converge next week on the banks of the sleepy Corrib. They bring knowledge and experience that extends from China to Nicaragua, Jamaica to Kurdistan, South Africa to Azerbaijan and the US to Iran. The emphasis is on reflection, according to Tomás Hardiman, the arts centre's new managing director. "We have been bombarded over the last weeks by news-media images, and Cúirt gives us a space to reflect on the human face of the world through art."
Many of the participants have lived in exile and experienced conflict. The US poets Bruce Weigl and George Evans are Vietnam veterans who have written passionately against war, and Daisy Zamora, Evans's partner and fellow poet, was a junior minister in Nicaragua's Sandinista government.
The poet and playwright Ariel Dorfman, who is best known for Death And The Maiden, survived General Pinochet's regime in Chile. André Brink was a constant critic of apartheid in his native South Africa. The turmoils of middle Europe and the Near East have been witnessed by the likes of the Anatolian-born poet and translator Cevat Çapan, the Iranian poet Ziba Karbassi, the Turkish writer Moris Farhi, the Kurdish poet Bejan Matur and the Azerbaijani poet Negar.
The pairing of voices from different backgrounds, which has consumed an immense amount of the festival panel's preparatory work, is one of the most fascinating aspects of Cúirt.
So Fahri will share the stage at the Town Hall Theatre with Bei Dao, one of China's foremost living poets, who has lived in exile since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. Negar, who writes in Russian, links up with the Australian Richard McKane, who translated her work last year.
The children's author, journalist and poet Áine Ní Ghlinn gives a lunchtime reading with Kapka Kassabova of Bulgaria, who has lived in England, France and New Zealand and reflects that constant upheaval and complex history through her verse.
The complexities of contemporary events will be the theme of the Cúirt debate on April 25th, when a panel chaired by Mark Little of RTÉ and including Dorfman, Zamora, the visual artist Shane Cullen and Michael D Higgins, the Labour Party's foreign-affairs spokesman, will examine a question first posed by Dorfman in the Guardian in January: is it possible that the peace everybody proclaims as desirable is in fact so elusive on our planet precisely because as humans we are much better at imagining discord than at imagining harmony?
The debate, whose title is Imagining Harmony: The Responsibility Of Art, is an appropriate continuation of the discussion initiated at last year's discussion, when the BBC journalist George Alagiah, the writer and historian Misha Glenny, the Nobel prize-winning author Nadine Gordimer, the Derry author and activist Eamonn McCann and Higgins discussed the responsibilities of war reporting.
Higgins, always provocative, posed a series of questions that the participants endeavoured to answer - were you a "tourist of tragedy" or voyeur if you travelled to a conflict, was neutrality impossible and were we all victims of a "single narrative", controlled by an economic structure in the media that journalists were reluctant to confront?
Next week's participation of Little is subject to events in Iraq - it is what makes Cúirt so vital and spontaneous, while involving meticulous planning. "In 2000, Germaine Greer almost didn't make it, because she was attacked in her home shortly before she was due here," says Maura Kennedy, the festival's co- ordinator.
She works closely with Hardiman - as she did with Helen Carey, his predecessor - to distil ideas put forward by the festival's advisory panel, which is chaired by Dr Chris Coughlan of Hewlett-Packard.
If the programme seems much more ambitious this year, it is only because of the diversity of cultures, says Kennedy. "Cúirt was originally a poetry festival when it started, 18 years ago, but it has changed and grown to reflect contemporary events."
Part of its attraction, as Hardiman and Kennedy stress, is that it is not led by publishers. Writers have to be invited. There can be no lobbying, nor is there hype. "It is unhypeable," says Hardiman, wincing a little at his use of English. "The challenge is to attract audiences in the absence of hype." And Cúirt does, partly because of the intimate nature of Galway and partly because tickets are so affordable, with most events costing less than €10 and some free of charge. Steady support from Galway City Council, from the Arts Council and from loyal sponsors makes this possible. "But there is an awful lot of voluntary work, and no more so than this year, because our overall budget was cut," says Hardiman.
There is much mixing and matching of cultures, including a strong domestic dimension, with a full programme of Irish and Scots Gaelic readings, sean-nós singing, Irish reggae and drama in Annaghvane, in Connemara.
"Ariel Dorfman is just dying to get out to the Gaeltacht, as is Billy Collins, the US poet laureate," says Hardiman, who with his arts-centre team will be exposing the visiting writers to the best of Irish culture.
The Irish writer Gabriel Rosenstock will also be leading Cúirt Renga - a day of "co-operative" composition of poetry according to the Japanese art of renga, with a poem of 20 verses being finalised for a public reading.
There's also a poetry grand slam, book launches (including new work by Hugo Hamilton), a 24-hour theatre extravaganza by Galway Youth Theatre and a skite up the Corrib on the Corrib Princess to Annaghdown, when poets Rody Gorman, Gerard Smyth and Gearoid MacLochlainn will read en route.
Ed Moloney, author of A Secret History Of The IRA, is travelling from New York to deliver the Anne Kennedy Memorial Lecture, when his theme will be The North: A Settled Conflict.
Artists from Northern Ireland will take part in Settlement, an exhibition that runs alongside the festival. It will combine the work of 10 artists from Palestine, Ireland and the US to explore the impact of military occupation, botched attempts at settlement and the acknowledgment that artists can't be neutral.
The festival's strong outreach programme includes a visit by Farhi and Mike McCormack to Castlerea Prison, in Co Roscommon. This is an extension of the festival's prison-libraries scheme, suggested by Lelia Doolan, whereby the authors donate works to Castlerea and Portlaoise.
New departures this year include the publication of the first Cúirt annual, which will contain new Irish writing from submissions to West 47, Galway Arts Centre's literary journal, and new, unpublished work by Cúirt participants. There will also be a Cúirt prize for new writing, worth €500, chosen from submissions to West 47's new online version between next month and March 2004.
The Tribunals Show: Flood And Moriarty Revued, with Joe Taylor, Malcolm Douglas, Susie Kennedy and Gaby Smith, is a highlight of the late-night programming, as is Ron Goodall's characterisation An Evening With Samuel Johnson. With such a bamboozle of influences, to quote Maura Kennedy, focused on such a short week, the nightly festival club at Brennan's Yard Hotel should take on another dimension entirely.
HOW TO BOOK
Fourteen nationalities will be represented at the 18th annual Cúirt International Festival of Literature, with 77 participants discussing exile and political engagement.
The festival is based at the Town Hall Theatre, with readings running from 11 a.m. to 10.30 p.m. each day. It will be opened on Tuesday, April 22nd, at the Aula Maxima, NUI Galway, by Prof William Schabas, director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights.
For further information and to book tickets, contact Galway Arts Centre, at 091-565886, or the Town Hall Theatre, from Monday to Saturday between 10 a.m. and 7.30 p.m., at 091-569777.
