The 22nd International Cúirt Festival of Literature was not simply a celebration of the written word - it was also a platform for discussion on politics, human rights, oppression and the stigma of serious illness, writes Sorcha Hamilton.
'WE KNOW WE live in a society that is unjust — so what do we do?" This was the question posed by the author Ronan Bennett as he took to the stage during the Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway. Defending the right of authors to speak out, he challenged the notion that politics in a novel - as the French author Stendhal once wrote - is like a "pistol shot" at the opera. Before reading from his most recent novel Zugswang, Bennett criticised authors Salman Rushdie - for accepting a knighthood - and Martin Amis, who he recently took to task over his comments about Muslims.
Art and politics made many crossovers during the festival, with discussions ranging from Chechnya and the role of the journalist, to Indra Sinha's fictionalised account of the Bhopal disaster in India and a wacky trip in search of logo-free America. It was also a strong year for poetry, with the line-up including US poet laureate Donald Hall and Pulizter prize-winner CK Williams. Other names that drew large audiences included authors Sebastian Barry and Jennifer Johnston, Samantha Power, the former adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, and Asne Seierstad, author of The Bookseller of Kabul.
Seierstad stirred a lively debate at Galway's Town Hall theatre, where a woman in the audience accused her of writing purely from the "westerner's point of view". The Norwegian author, whose bestselling book stirred much controversy in Afghanistan, is used to defending her work. "I got lots of letters from Afghan women thanking me for describing their world," she said, later asking another woman in the audience if she had actually read the book.
Her latest work, which mixes journalism with a fictional style, is about a young boy in Chechnya. Interviewed by former Irish Timesinternational editor Seamus Martin, she described how she witnessed the brutalisation of youngsters growing up in Chechnya, "a totally forgotten place".
The South African poet and political activist Breyten Breytenbach experienced at first hand state brutalisation when he was imprisoned for speaking out against apartheid. Breytenbach's visit - a coup for the festival organisers who had been writing to him for years - was a particularly moving event. He described how he wanted to "dwell inside" the letters he received and read over and over during his seven years inside.
Remembering the "breaths like shackles", he told how the other inmates would sing together as they lined up to be executed.
Two fascinating tales of survival came together at the festival, both from women. Liz Martin read from Still Standing, a compelling, unsentimental account of being diagnosed with HIV. Martin had just had her fourth child and had escaped an abusive relationship with Simon, a heroin addict, when she went for a test. The book is a testament to her determination to speak out against the stigma attached to HIV and to offer hope to others with the virus. It also offers an interesting perspective on growing up in the Liberties in Dublin, where "bag snatching and syringes quickly replaced childhood games". Martin said the response to the book has been overwhelming: "all the flower-sellers and fruit-sellers in Dublin bought it - I can't go down the street now without them giving me bananas or apples."
IN 2003, VESNA GOLDSWORTHY was told she had six months to live. "That's not true, obviously," she says on stage, smiling, before reading from her memoir. Chernobyl Strawberriesis a "private, family story" which was written while Goldsworthy was receiving treatment for breast cancer. The book describes how she ate strawberries at her home outside Belgrade two days before the government announced that fresh fruit and vegetables should not be eaten because of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
The book intertwines her memories of Yugoslavia, which she left "in the throes of the huge Communist experiment", with some quirky Serbian observations of the "downright weirdness" of her adopted home of England.
There are also many haunting descriptions of her illness - such as the x-rays of her breasts and the brightly coloured spots of the cancer, "the only image of myself I find impossible to forget".
An outlandish reading by Dave Gorman was a welcome addition to the festival, which has struggled in the past to attract younger audiences. The former stand-up comedian, best known for his Googlewack Adventuresand the Are You Dave Gorman?experiment, has somewhat of a cult following. His new book, America Unchained, is about travelling across the US without giving any money to "the man", ie big business.
During a relaxed Sunday afternoon show at the Róisín Dubh pub, Gorman told some batty tales about his roadtrip: crashing into two Eminem types with guns, getting run out of town by the police and being followed by an ice-storm. Describing the southern landscape as like "a CGI effect of cornfields", Gorman explained how his search for non-corporate America sometimes ended in more disturbing discoveries - such as the offbeat petrol station with the sign about boycotting Wal-Mart "because they stock Brokeback Mountain".
The short story made a good show at the festival with the visit of New Yorker David Means. Taking to the stage on the same week that William Trevor was honoured at the Irish Book Awards, Means said he was delighted to be in a country "where a national newspaper will put a short story writer on the cover". With his geeky-type glasses and slightly modest presence, Means read The River in Egypt, a story about a man taking his son into hospital to be tested for cystic fibrosis. A curious psychoanalytical edge runs throughout this quietly touching piece, which was recently published in the New Yorkermagazine. Means also judged a short story competition run by Galway's Flosca writing group, which just launched its first anthology.
MIKE MCCORMACK, WHO IS writer in residence at NUI Galway, read a short story called Drink, Drink Driving, Heart Attacks. Moments of male companionship - sitting over a few pints in the local or peeing into the ditch on the walk home - are brilliantly captured in this understated, often humorous story. A visit by Canadian-English author Rachel Cusk was also warmly received; she read from the new-fangled domestic world of her latest novel, Arlington Park.
"I AM bananas . . . I am a poet," read Wendy Cope during her witty performance on Saturday night. A sharp, humorous disrespect for the role of poet ran throughout her reading, which included the five limericks she wrote as a compressed version of TS Eliot's The Wasteland, a poem about how "you nearly bought me flowers" and what it's like being "speedy spinster" in the supermarket.
Cúirt, which started out as a poetry festival, stuck to its roots this year with a fine line-up of poets. CK Williams - "white-haired, long-faced, ape with a book" - read new and old poetry, including a shocking piece about a girl falling from an open window. Susan Rich brought experiences from Bosnia, Gaza and the paranoid, post-9/11 US society into a diverse reading, while Irish poet Vona Groarke spoke about "the spray that comes off the crest of a wave" and read other alluring pieces inspired by a view of the bay in Spiddal.
Under the new directorship of Páraic Breathnach, the festival's Irish language programme was given a boost with readings from Liam Ó Muirthile and Manchán Magan, among others. Breathnach introduced readings for children and poetry slams for younger audiences, which drew large, lively crowds.
Another addition was a wacky, unconventional walking literary tour, produced by Earwig Arts, which included a stop at Walter Macken's home, where his son gave a reading, a pint in Monroe's pub and an actor's madcap leap into the canal. While overall the festival was perhaps a more low-key event this year, memorable readings from Breytenbach, Goldsworthy and others certainly made up for it.
It was 80-something US Poet Laureate Donald Hall, however, who was the high point of the festival. With his round spectacles and curly white hair and beard, Hall looks more like an ageing farmer just in from the cornfields.
Even his poetry has titles such as "Maple Syrup" and "White Apples". Hall told the audience how he "was crazy for cheerleaders and poems" as a young boy. He remembers telling his partner in eighth grade that "dead people don't like olives" as they learned to do the foxtrot. For many years after his wife's death, Hall couldn't write about anything else. She loved gardening, he said, describing the peonies or daffodils that are a constant reminder of her. "I keep her weary ghost inside me," he read, and soon after shuffled slowly off the stage.
