AN ARBITRARY A-Z OF THE GALLE LITERARY FESTIVAL 2010
We will keep adding to the list so please come back to check for new entries!

A Spendid Afternoon to Walk Out

So starts A Time of Gifts, in which renowned travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor records his walk from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople.  He set out on 8 December 1933, with war brewing in Europe.  He was 18 and armed with The Oxford Book of English Verse.  Later, during the Second World War Patrick Leigh Fermor was responsible for the daring capture of a German general.  Artemis Cooper is writing the official biography of this remarkable man who is now 94.  She comes to the Festival to speak about his story and her experience of working with him.

This event will take place on Saturday 30 January, 11.15-12.15, at the Maritime Museum

Botanical Gardens

Did you know that the Botanical Gardens in Peradeniya turn 200 in 2010?  Planned as the tropical counterpart to Kew Gardens in London, ‘The Gardens’ have now taken firm root in the landscape of Sri Lanka.  Come and hear the current Director of the Gardens, Dr. Siril Wijesundara, tell the story of how it was planned and grown.

This event will take place Saturday 30 January, 10-11 am, at the Amangalla.

Cricket

At the opening of the Galle Literary Festival 2009 Shehan Karunatilaka read ‘Sport v. Life’ a chapter from his novel in manuscript about ‘Sri Lanka’s greatest cricketer never to achieve stardom’.  He went on to win the Gratiaen Prize 2009 for this manuscript.  At the Festival he will tell us more about Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew.  Writers Diran Adebayo and Amit Varma (one of the founding editors of Cricinfo India) are also keen to meet Shehan and talk cricket.  Perhaps we could get enough people together for a game?

Shehan Karunatilaka will speak about his book on Sunday 31 January, 10-11am, at the Hall de Galle.

Crime Writing

Award-winning detective writer Ian Rankin has recently retired his most famous character: John Rebus.  At the Festival he will speak about the Rebus series - how it began and how it ended - and give you some tips for starting on your own crime writing.  We’re proposing to do this over famous detectives’ favourite drinks.  Anyone know which whisky John Rebus preferred?

This event will take place Sunday 31 January, 6.30-8.00pm, at the Galle Fort Hotel
See Opening Lines below for a story started for you by Ian Rankin.

Diran Adebayo

Diran Adebayo, is best known for writing about the urban black experience of London.  Visit http://www.theblessedmonkey.com/ for a love letter he recently wrote to Barack Obama.

Diran Adebayo will join Claire Tomalin and Rana Dasgupta to discuss the Lives of Cities on Sunday 31 January, 11.15-12.15, at the Hall de Galle.

Gypsies

The writer Louise Doughty comes from a long line of Romany gypsies whom she has written about and re-invented in her books.  She has drawn on her own grandparents as characters and also on the history of the Romany people and their largely ignored persecution in Europe, right up to the present day.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/16/roma.race

Louise Doughty will speak on the subject on Sunday 31 January, 11.15-12.15, at the Maritime Museum.

Kite Flying

The Festival celebrates the publication of Keerthihan’s Kite, a trilingual picture book – in English, Sinhala and Tamil.  Two years in the making, the book is about a boy living on Sea Street who wants to make a high flying kite.  It is designed both to entertain children and to be a useful tool in teaching and learning all three languages.  At the Festival the book will be used in a trial trilingual language lesson, and followed by kite-flying for all on the ramparts.

This event will take place on Friday 29 January, 4.45pm, at the Maritime Museum, following on to the Ramparts.  We’ve checked the winds for the best place to fly kites in Galle Fort!

Opening Lines

Would you like to finish a story started by one of our Festival writers? Visit
 http://www.galleliteraryfestival.com/node/230 to join a project we’ve been running with them.

The winning entries will be read on Saturday 30 January, 10-11, at the Maritime Museum

Small Publishing Houses

The Festival is delighted to have small independent publishing houses represented in the ranks of its participants this year.  Blaft Publications, which publishes Indian pulp fiction, will be featured at the Festival, as will Tulika Books, a new publisher of children’s books.

Coming from furthest away are representatives of McSweeney’s publishing house.  When Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern first began as a literary journal in 1998 it published only works rejected by other magazines.  Edited in San Francisco it was printed in Iceland, and each quirky edition looked quite unlike the last.  Some issues came in a box, some with a full colour painting on every other page. McSweeney’s has since grown to become a publisher of books, and a byword for innovative and interesting publishing.

For more information on McSweeney’s visit
www.mcsweeneys.net
http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/about.home/about_us.cfm

Come and hear the story of McSweeney’s in detail on Friday 29 January, 3.30pm at the Maritime Museum.

Tea and Cake

Wendy Cope is perhaps Britain’s most popular poet, known for her witty, readable verse.  She will be featured at the Festival alongside the charismatic Scottish poet Jackie Kay.  The two are also friends and invite you to join them for an afternoon tea party with poetry.

This event will take place on Sunday 31 January, 3.30-5.30pm, at the Dutch House

Truth and Reconciliation

Gillian Slovo grew up in the South Africa of Apartheid, the daughter of committed activists against it.  Her father Joe Slovo, long-time leader of the South African Communist Party, lived to see change in South Africa and become a Minister in Nelson Mandela’s government.  Her mother, Ruth First, was assassinated by letter bomb, by order of the Apartheid security police.  Years later Gillian Slovo met her mother’s assassin, and has written about this encounter.  Her novel Red Dust draws on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  She comes to the Festival to speak about her memoir, about her work on a play built out of testimonies about the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. 

The film, A World Apart, starring Barbara Hershey, is about Gillian Slovo’s family.

Gillian Slovo will speak about her memoir on Friday 29 January, 11.15-12.15 at the Maritime Museum and about her work on Guantanamo on Sunday 31 January 3.30-4.30, also at the Maritime Museum. 

Writing about Sri Lanka

In her memoir Gillian Slovo recounts an incident when negotiating South African roads after a long time away, a fellow driver yells at her ‘Who do you think you are?!’  She turns the incident into a reflective musing on whether she really has any business even writing about her country.  At the Festival this incident will give its name to a session in which Michelle de Kretser, Ru Freeman, Lal Medawattegedera and David Blacker speak about the stories they have each chosen to tell about Sri Lanka.  They will be joined by Gillian Slovo whose own latest novel is about a Sinhalese family that moves to England in the 1950s.

This will be the opening session of the Galle Literary Festival 2010, and is a free event, open to all.