WRITERS MAKE HI-TECH LINK TO BOOK FESTIVAL
Tim Cornwell – Arts Correspondent ([email protected])
Scotsman, United Kingdom
June 15 2007
NORMAN Mailer and Alice Munro are among the writers appearing at this
year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival – but they won’t turn
up in person.
Catherine Lockerbie, the director, explained that the writers will
be interviewed from the United States and Canada live on stage in
Edinburgh, via a high-definition broadband link.
In what she claimed as a world festival "first", both will talk to
and sign books for about 50 members of the audience.
The ‘LongPen’ technology allowing this to happen is the brainchild
of Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, who even claims it’s a "green"
device because it cuts down on global travel. She will be using it
herself to interview her compatriot Alice Munro, widely seen as one
of the world’s finest short story writers, in her Ontario home.
Controversial American novelist Norman Mailer, world- famous ever
since the publication of The Naked and the Dead in 1948, is, at 84,
too unwell to fly to Edinburgh. He will be interviewed by leading
Scottish novelist Andrew O’Hagan.
The festival unveiled its 2007 line-up for 11-27 August yesterday.
With 600 authors from more than 40 countries, there is a strong
international flavour. Strands will focus on China and its
extraordinary growth, and on India, with the 60th anniversary of
independence and the 150th anniversary of the Mutiny.
Ms Lockerbie called it the "biggest, most international and most
Scottish programme in the book festival’s history", that proved how
culture and festivals "are crucial to this country’s identity, image,
economic health, international reputation and sense of self".
International visitors include the former Cambodian child soldier and
land mines campaigner, Loung Ung; the Turkish intellectual Elif Shafak,
prosecuted for referring to Armenian genocide in one of her novels;
and the top Basque writer Bernardo Axtaga.
Last year, the festival netted three Nobel prize winners. This year
it has none, and the festival’s thrust is aimed at "writers of the
world" rather than celebrities.
Coups include the actor and writer Alan Bennett, who appeared in
Edinburgh in Beyond the Fringe in 1960, but rarely makes festival
appearances.
Charles Spencer, brother of Diana, will talk about his history of
the swashbuckling Prince Rupert of the Rhine. Singer Billy Bragg
talks on The Progressive Patriot, his book on what it means to be
English, and British. Others are the US novelist Joyce Carol Oates,
the Nigerian-born Booker Prize winner Ben Okri and last year’s biggest
seller, the broadcaster Andrew Marr.
On the Scottish front authors range from Iain Banks to Alexander
McCall Smith and the poet John Burnside. Other highlights include
Ian McEwan, Doris Lessing, and General Sir Michael Rose on his new
book on how American revolutionaries fighting British forces used
the same techniques as Iraqi insurgents.
In another example of new technology put to good literary use, Lucy
Hawking is bringing the science adventure book she wrote with her
father, Professor Stephen Hawking, to the children’s section of the
festival. Her father will take questions live from the audience by
text message, with the answers appearing on screen.
A lively children’s section will look at graphic novels for the first
time, with Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy, who produced a graphic version
of Kidnapped.