2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival

Two coming-of-age tales come under the microscope in this event recorded live at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival. Shahad Al Rawi’s poignant debut The Baghdad Clock (winner of the Book Festival's 2018 First Book Award) takes us back to 1991 with the Iraqi capital under fire as two girls bond against the backdrop of military bombardment. Michael Donkor’s moving and unexpectedly funny debut novel Hold, switches between Ghana and Britain as a wayward girl finds kinship with a sensible teenager.

In histories written by men, good women have rarely been given much credit. In Scotland, there’s a growing urge to redress the balance and, with her new collection Quines, Gerda Stevenson has produced a very necessary corrective. These unforgettable poems recognise the salt sellers, the fish-gutters, scientists and politicians who have made such a key contribution to Scotland’s history. In this event, recorded live at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival, she discusses the collection with Jackie McGlone. 

Considered by many to be one of America’s great literary voices, National Book Award winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard Powers presents The Overstory, his seductive and beguiling novel of interlocking stories (now also shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize). Neil Griffiths’s first book won awards, his second was shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel; in this event, recorded live at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival, he discusses his third, As a God Might Be, a Guardian Book of the Week hailed as ‘an ambitious, generous novel about the limits of faith and love.’

LIFE AMONG LIFERS

Rachel Kushner’s much-anticipated follow-up novel to the dazzlingly successful The Flamethrowers is The Mars Room, a fearless and brutally honest portrayal of Romy, a woman starting a double life sentence in a US correctional facility, leaving her young son with her mother. We welcome Kushner back to Edinburgh to discuss her latest book with American-Mexican novelist and human rights activist Jennifer Clement.

MY BLACK AND DEEP DESIRES

A former footballer, financial analyst and the lead singer of a chart-topping band in his homeland, Norway’s Jo Nesbo struck gold with the crime-writing career which has made his name. His latest bestseller, Macbeth, is a fresh take on Shakespeare’s ‘Scottish play’, relocating it to a police department where Inspector Macbeth is plagued by paranoia.

Just what does it take to write a page-turning bestselling crime novel? Dumbarton-born, Aberdeen-raised Stuart MacBride can offer plenty of advice on that front, given his Logan McRae series keeps on hitting the heights of popularity. Fellow writer Stephanie Merritt joins him in this event recorded live at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival to delve into The Blood Road, his 11th Logan mystery, out now. It’s time to get on board and see what the fuss is about.

Fans of Naomi Alderman’s The Power will appreciate these ambitious political novels about women defying restrictions. Sophie Mackintosh’s The Water Cure centres on three women raised in total isolation and the men who come to find them. Leni Zumas’s Red Clocks sees four women drawn together in resistance in an imagined America where abortion is illegal and a new law grants property rights to every embryo. Hear the pair discuss their stories in this event recorded live at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival.

The exceptional emotional breadth of British poetry is on display in this event featuring Sean Borodale and Ruth Padel, recorded live at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival. Borodale, described by Carol Ann Duffy as ‘the most exciting new poet I’ve read since Alice Oswald’, brings Asylum, a new collection that nods to the Underworld. Prize-winning poet Padel presents Emerald, a beautiful elegy for her mother, who died at the age of 97.

A renowned poet whose work often hauntingly evokes the lives of Scottish outsiders, and a mesmerising reader of his own work, Robin Robertson strikes out with a breathtaking new project, The Long Take. In this verse novel, Walker is a war veteran from Nova Scotia who sets out for Los Angeles in 1948. Robertson’s book demonstrates the origins of ‘noir’, presented here with period filmic and musical accompaniment.

 

Robertson has won multiple prestigious awards for his writing and is regarded as one of Scotland’s finest poets. He has been shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize for The Long Take – about which the judges said: ‘it’s an extraordinary evocation of the debris and the ongoing destruction of war even in times of peace. Robin Robertson shows the flexibility a poet can bring to form and style.’ In this event recorded live at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival, we meet a writer at the height of his powers. 

‘Remember you will die’, said the slave to the Roman general. Richard Holloway’s new book, Waiting for the Last Bus, is a reflection on the final curtain we must all face. Thoughtful, engaging and often quietly moving, it’s a manual for dying elegantly and a plea to make the best of the days we have left. Join the good Reverend for a lighthearted look at death, and the lives we live before it in this event chaired by Jane Fowler and recorded live at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival.