April 6th, 2006
Palahniuk for Cúirt Festival
Every year The Cúirt International Festival of Literature seems to the raise the bar with its programme, not to mention the odd coupling of certain writers for discussions. This year, its 21st, there’s a wonderful array of visual art, film, music, theatre and lectures to take in, but it’s the literature aspect of the festival that’s most intriguing. You can catch Fergal Keane and Lebanese writer Alexandre Najjar in conversation, Slovenian author Drago Jancar will be talking to Edna O’Brien and multi-faceted writers Leland Bardwell and Robert Bly talk poetry, novels and possibly the men’s movement.
African writer Abdulrazak Gurnah and American novelist Alice McDermott team up for a literary chat and Eoin Colfer, author of Artemis Fowl, will also be giving a talk. DBC Pierre will host a prose masterclass as well as chatting with Richmond Fontaine band member Willy Vlautin (who has just written his first novel). Lionel Shriver, author of ‘We Need to talk about Kevin’ will be talking to South African writer Zoe Wicomb and American poet Nikki Giovanni will be in conversation with Seamus Heaney.
I was most looking forward to two talks in particular - one between Chuck Palahniuk and detective/myster writer Walter Mosley. The other one - sadly - was John McGahern’s chat with Abdelwahab Meddeb.
The Festival also launches Sealines, a writers’ residency project which spans bilingual ports across Europe in an effort to make literary connections. (Galway is partnered with Riga and Koper)
Cúirt takes place from Tuesday April 25th to Sunday April 30th in Galway. For further information, visit the Cúirt website.
April 6th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
Sounds like something worth visiting. Unfortunately I won’t be in the Galway area at the time. The trouble with London is that there’s so much on you’re spoiled for choice, so you end up going to very few events. Galway seems to have become a happening palce in terms of cultural events - a possible future contender for European city of culture perhaps?
April 6th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Stupid school. Next year, I guess.
April 7th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
I’m going to be meeting (for an interview) with Mark Doty today, an American poet who’s going to be at Cuirt. I must say I wish I could be in Galway next week. I was there for most of the week last year and it is a fantastic and all-enveloping experience, like a university education and a stay in an artists’ community all wrapped up in one. One thing I didn’t realise about this year’s programme was that it’s planned for writers to actually talk to each other. Usually they just have one reading and leaving the stage, then the other reading and leaving the stage. I’d love to see some of those people in conversation.