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and his colleagues back at the BBC — watched and waited to see whether the Army of lslam would show mercy and free him.
It's been just over a year since he was released and flown back to his home in Loch Goil on the west coast. and the courageous Scots broadcaster is coming here to talk about his life- changing ordeal. It's likely to be an emotional event, as he looks back on the violence and anarchy of the area he'd been delivering dispatches on for three years.
As Johnston explains in his stiff- upper-lipped and deeply moving book, Kidnapped, he's come to think of the experience as a son of ‘dark education‘. He was allowed to listen to BBC radio during his captivity and heard ex-Beirut hostage, Terry Waite. giving him some long distance advice. ‘The words gave me a tremendous psychological lift. He said that the mind and body were extraordinary things, and that I would find more strength than I might think I had.’ Audiences can expect hard-hitting, yet heart-warming and life-affirming stuff in this talk chaired by the BBC correspondent. Allan Little. (Claire Sawers)
I 74 Aug, 6.30pm, £9, (£7).
KAPKA KASSABOVA Travel memoir about Bulgaria from Edinburgh-based scribe
Kapka Kassabova likes to travel. You can tell, because the writer's accent is all over the place: there‘s Eastern European, Antipodean and a hint of Scottish in there as she chats away. Kassabova was raised in Bulgaria before living in New Zealand for ten years. These days she is based in Edinburgh, working as a travel writer, a job which satisfies her wanderlust and which led to her latest work, a part- memoir, part-travel book entitled Street Without a Name.
‘I returned to Bulgaria to research a travel guide,’ she says. ‘It was strange doing research in the country I grew up in. It became a homecoming of sorts. a very emotionally loaded experience that i
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was the trigger for the book.‘ Bulgaria remains a country in flux. coming to terms with capitalism and freedom. and Kassabova's excellent memoir contrasts her experiences growing up during the Cold War with the turmoil of today. ‘You have more clarity of vision with a bit of distance.‘ she says. 'So I think I see things the locals don't see.‘ Organised crime is rife these days. and Kassabova's book is unflinching and unsentimental, something she fears will not endear her to those living there today. ‘I've received amazingly emotional emails from ex-pats. but people living there will be less thankful because it's a very critical book. Small countries are very sensitive about their image.“ As for Bulgaria's future. Kassabova remains unsure. 'I want to be optimistic,‘ she laughs grimly. ‘It can only get better, I suppose.‘ (Doug Johnstone) I 73 Aug (with Kate C/anchy), 7 lam, £9 (£7).
HELEN WALSH
Warrington author cleanses the past
If Helen Walsh's Betty Trask Award- winning debut Brass came from the guts, its follow-up Once Upon a Time in England comes from the heart. Set in the author's native Warrington. the book charts two decades of English/Malaysian family the Fitzgeralds. the only mixed race household on their estate. just as Walsh's was when she was born in 1977. 'The stOry isn't autobiographical,‘ she insists. ‘But I Suppose my journey. and my parents journey in particular. is scattered all over the landscape. I use my mum and dad's experience in an oblique way, as a working rnetaphor.‘
Talented and aspirational but beset by misfortune and racial hatred, the Fitzgeralds endure heavily. Walsh's own upbringing was more stable. but she went ‘off piste' in her early teens. embarking on an ‘acid house sojourn' that spiralled into cocaine addiction and a midnight bunk — aged 16 — to Barcelona, where she spent two years working as a ‘fixer‘, hooking men up with prostitutes.
After near total mental and physical collapse, she moved back to Liverpool. enrolled in university and penned Brass. a raw, angry story about a teenager who binges self-destructiver on pills, powder, booze and rough sex. Walsh describes the writing of that book as being like ‘Iancing a boil‘. She's clean and sober now, and mopping up praise for her novels. ‘Writing has purged a lot of that indulgence out of me. It's a great way to get out of it in a safe way. And I don't wake up the next day with a crushing hangover.‘ (Malcolm Jack)
I 73 Aug (with Philip Hens/ier), 70. 758/77, £79 ((77).
HUNGRY?
You can now book restaurants online at
LIST.CO.I.II(
Visit www.list.co.uklrestaurants, search for the restaurant of your choice and click on the link to book.
IT'S AS SIMPLE AS THAT.
LIST.00.UK
7~14 Aug 2008 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 17