Loose Leaves SadbhWriters from France, Haiti, Canada, Togo, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia and Ireland will converge on Dublin for the fifth annual Franco-Irish Literary Festival (April 2nd-4th).
The theme this year is "Memory Now", with an emphasis on memory's increasing importance in a globalised world. Mindful that we're on the eve of the biggest enlargement the EU has experienced, it was a deliberate decision to include writers from accession countries. These include Pavel Verner (Czech Republic) Laima Muktupavela (Latvia) and Antoni Libera from Poland, who, apart from his career as a novelist, directed many Beckett plays - the festival organisers say he was dubbed "my deputy in eastern Europe" by Beckett .
Inevitably, given the year that's in it, there is a Joycean link. The Bloomsday centenary will be commemorated on Saturday, April 3rd, with a panel discussion, "In Joyce's Wake", moderated by Joycean Terence Killeen. Writers taking part include Fabrice Lardreau and Charles Dantzig from France and Liam Mac Cóil and Hugo Hamilton from Ireland.
The simultaneous translation always works well at this festival, so although it may sound like the Tower of Babel, it's eminently possible to follow what's going on.
Other writers taking part are Anne Enright, Albert Memmi, Gerard Mannix Flynn, Béatrice Commengé, Medbh McGuckian, Denis Tillinac and Joseph O'Connor. Also participating are Kossi Efoui from Togo, who was active in the student movements against the Togolese government and took refuge in France, and Dany Laferrière, from Port-au-Prince, a critic of the Duvalier regime who also left his country for security reasons.
The Franco-Irish Literary festival opens at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 2nd, at the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin Castle. All events are open to the public and admission is free. Telephone:
01-6761732 and 01-7088305. www.alliance-francaise.ie www.ambafrance.ie
Lord Haw Haw on screen
Movie deals for Irish books are all the rage this weather. The latest revolves around Germany Calling, Mary Kenny's biography of wartime broadcaster Lord Haw Haw, aka William Joyce. The film is to be made by independent production company Haas-Silver- Levene and executive producer Timothy Haas says the casting of Joyce is in hand - not easy given that the man Goebbels called "the best horse in my stable" was only 5 feet tall in his stockings. It's hoped the film will be released in time for the 60th anniversary of Joyce's death; he died on January 3rd, 1946. Though not a British subject, he was the last person to be hanged for treason in Britain.
Poetry award
With prizes disappearing or under threat, it's good to hear of a new one. As part of the 10th anniversary of the Poetry Now Festival in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, next year, it will introduce an annual literary award in association with The Irish Times. The Irish Times PN05 Award will go to the best single volume of poems in English by an Irish poet in 2004. The judges will be announced in July; a shortlist next February, and the award of €5,000 will be presented in April, 2005.
Meanwhile, PN04, the ninth festival, kicks off on Thursday and the winner of this year's Rupert and Eithne Strong Award is Cathal McCabe. The award, which is part of Poetry Now, aims to encourage poets at the start of their publishing careers. McCabe, director of the Irish Writers' Centre, Dublin, is busy on his first collection. He's also working on a study of Derek Mahon and an anthology of 20th-century Polish poetry in English. The festival's director of programming, John McAuliffe, said McCabe's work was unusual in its range of reference. "It features translations from the Polish alongside homage to Máirtín Ó Direáin and combines mastery of form with both a spirit of inquiry and an emotional resonance."
Cathal McCabe will read with other shortlisted poets Leontia Flynn, Paul Perry and Bill Tinley at the Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, on Sunday, March 28th, at 2 p.m. Tickets cost €12/10.
Box office: 01-231 2929
E-mail: arts@dlrcoco.ie
www.dlrcoco.ie/arts
Keenan takes Hennessy
The overall Hennessy New Irish Writer for 2003 is a Derryman Séamas Keenan, who won with his short story, 'Poison'. Now in their 33rd year, the awards bring real provenance with them - they have helped launch the literary careers of Hugo Hamilton, Colum McCann, Marina Carr and Vona Groarke among others. Keenan is no stranger to prizes, having won the Brian Moore Short Story Competition and the Stand International Poetry Competition. The awards go to Irish writers of poetry and fiction first published in the New Irish Writing Page of the Sunday Tribune.