CUIRT 96, which Macnas co founder Paraic Breathnach formally launches in Galway next Tuesday, opens with a reading by the Canadian writer and poet Margaret Atwood, whose novels include The Handmaid's Tale and Cat's Eye, and promises to be not only an exciting festival of literature, but also an important forum for discussion.
The current state of Irish theatre and cinema come under scrutiny in two forums. The Landscape Of The Theatre (Thursday, 8 p.m.) brings together a panel including playwrights Billy Roche and Marina Carr as well as Garry Hynes, artistic director of Druid and Graham Whybrow, literary manager of the Royal Court. And the Film Forum (next Saturday, 3 p.m.) marks the 100th anniversary of Irish cinema with a discussion entitled Centenary Of What? A panel including Irish Film Board chairwoman Lelia Doolin, journalist and film critic Ciaran Carty and director Mary McGuckian will be chaired by Ciaran Benson of the Arts Council.
Most promising of all is Lost In Translation, a bilingual forum on Friday at 6 p.m., in which leading Irish language poets Cathal O'Searcaigh, Gabriel Rosenstock, Aine Ni Ghlinn and Michael Davitt discuss the frustrations and benefits - if any - of translation.
Now in its 10th year, Cuirt (which began as an international poetry festival) has increasingly broadened its range and this year's programme shows the poets sharing the stage with indeed, almost challenged by a strong selection of prose writers. Reading at Cuirt are the Whitbread Prize winning British poet and at times controversial playwright Tony Harrison on Sun day evening; while the Latvian poet Visma Belsevica reads earlier at 4.30 p.m. Marie Mhac an tSaoi and Paul Muldoon appear on Friday evening.
They will be followed by the singular Dub poet/playwright Benjamin Zephaniah, performing through a mixture of English and Jamaican patois, in a late night double bill with the Scots poet Nick Currie. Zephaniah was a contender for the Oxford Chair of Poetry in the year when the election was won by Seamus Heaney.
Irish novelists led by Jennifer Johnston, who reads with 1994 Rooney Prize winner Colum McCann on Wednesday evening, are well represented. Authors of two of the best Irish books of recent years, Mary Morrissy and Mike McCormack, share a lunchtime reading on Wednesday. Morrissy's eloquent and moving novel Mother Of Pearl could well prove a dark horse for Booker selection, while McCormack's black, offbeat Getting It In The Head collection has a wit, confidence, style and originality so often bragged about in Irish writing but seldom achieved at this level.
Pat McCabe's 1992 Booker shortlisted The Butcher Boy, and The Dead School (1995) should ensure that his reading on Saturday at 6.30 p.m. has standing room only. Subversive and inventive Irvine Welsh, one of the cult heroes of the hour and a member of the powerful Scots fiction movement of James Kelman, Jeff Torrington, A. L. Kennedy and Janice Galloway, author of novels Trainspotting (1993) and the even better Maraboustork Nightmares (1995) reads on Saturday evening.
A regular feature since Cuirt 1991, Poet's Platform takes place on Friday afternoon.
In the midst of Cuirt's celebrations, an event on Thursday night will celebrate the life and work of the poet and literary journalist Sean Dunne, who died last year. Dunne personified the idea of the writer/ reader in love with words. Among the contributors will be Tim Robinson, Dermot Healy and Peter Fallon. If he were still alive, there is no one who would have been more excited by Cuirt 96 than Dunne himself.
If a single quality dominates this year's tough, assertive programme, it is one of energy. Certainly for readers and writers, many, perhaps even all roads, should be leading to Galway next week.
