Loose Leaves: It's not every day that you have a mystery guest lined up for a literary festival, but the Dublin Writers Festival can promise to let a literary rabbit out of the hat - the winner of the International Impac Dublin Literary Award will be announced on June 13th, the day before the opening of the festival.
Whoever it is, man or woman, Irish or from abroad, will be sharing the podium on June 16th with poet and novelist Brian Lynch and novelist Marsha Mehran. Mehran, born in Tehran, escaped the Iranian revolution with her family and grew up in Argentina. She now lives between Brooklyn and Ireland. Her debut novel, Pomegranate Soup (2005) was set in the west of Ireland.
In Your Granny's: The Changing Face of Fictional Dublin is the title of a session at which Roddy Doyle will discuss the changing character of Dublin, as it has unrolled in his fiction over the last two decades, with fellow writer Anne Enright. The session title emanates from a Dublin expression, "You're in your granny's", which was new to this column and means you're safe and sound; on home turf. This session will be a highlight given how much the capital has changed in recent years and the multicultural side of it that couldn't have been envisaged even 10 years ago (all of which has been intently witnessed by Doyle). Other high points will be Seamus Heaney reading with Dutch poet Rutger Kopland, and Ziauddin Sardar's lecture Writing Connections: Bridging the Divide Between Islam and Europe. A writer, broadcaster and cultural critic, Sardar, who featured on Britain's Top 100 Public Intellectuals list in Prospect magazine, will be asking whether art, especially writing, can function as a bridge between religious Muslim communities and secular western Europe.
Sara Berkeley, Peter Fallon, Conor O'Callaghan, George Evans, Kerry Hardie, Amir Or, Justin Quinn, Kate Thompson, John Boyne, Declan Lynch and Rita Ann Higgins are among the other writers taking part in the festival. It will also feature the launch of VERSschmuggel VÉARSaistear, a new anthology, with accompanying CDs, of Irish and German poetry from Cló Iar-Chonnachta, with poets Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Mirko Bonne, introduced by publisher Micheál Ó Conghaile.
The closing event at 8pm in the Gate Theatre on Sunday, June 18th, features Jeanette Winterson. Winterson, who famously went from being reared in a household in which there were only six books (among them the Bible and Cruden's Complete Concordance to the Old and New Testaments) went on to write her first novel, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, when she was 23.
The festival runs June 14-18. Box office/advance bookings 01-8819613/01-8819614, e-mail info@dublinwritersfestival.com
The 'Da Vinci' Competition
With the movie of The Da Vinci Code opening next Friday, Eason, in conjunction with VisitBritain, is offering a two-night break in Edinburgh, the third location of Dan Brown's book, entrance to the infamous Rosslyn Chapel and tickets for the City of the Dead Walking Tour. All readers have to do is visit one of Eason's 48 stores nationwide and answer a questionnaire that asks which Academy Award-winning actor plays Prof Robert Langdon in the film: Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise or Thom Yorke. The form has to reach Eason's competition book division in Santry by June 4th. You don't even have to be one of the novel's marching army of fans to have your name in the hat.
New chapter at O'Brien Press
It's a case of three generations at the Irish publishing house, The O'Brien Press. Founded by Michael O'Brien in 1974 with his father, Tomás, Michael's son Ivan became its managing director during the week. Born into the family-run business, he has worked there for more than 10 years but now takes the helm. Michael, one of the most visible presences on the Irish publishing scene, will take on the role of publisher, developing new ideas for the press and maximising sales on the international market. He'll also continue to commission new authors. The company has published more than 1,000 titles and has a workforce of 20.
New short story award
No sooner has the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award become an annual event than another Irish short story writer, Michael McLaverty, has an award scheme named in his honour. While the Cork-based award is for a published collection, this new award is for a single short story by an Irish writer. Organised by the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, the £1,000 (€1,457) prize will be awarded every year on November 17th. The library will publish the winning entry and the best of the runners-up.
For further details, contact John Killen, Linen Hall Library, 17 Donegall Square North, Belfast BT1 5GB