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JURA UNBOUND: HEAD NORTH, MY FRIEND! Words and music from the ‘High North’ EDINBURGH BOOK FRINGE Word Power Books’ annual festival features Mark Thomas and Janice Galloway
In explaining this showcase of the works of Arctic communities – from the ‘High North’, as he puts it – organiser and host Ryan Van Winkle elaborates upon why this particular period in time is so important for the region. ‘Right now, the ice caps are melting at a shocking rate and international companies are keen to exploit the wealth of resources which are accessible for the first time ever,’ he says. ‘So in the news you’re seeing ships heading north and that’s going to bring a lot of attention and tension to the region. We feel it best to invite artists over to give them the space to speak in their own words and we hope you’ll join us. It’ s an important time in the history of the Arctic and these voices are more vital than ever.’ There will be words, music and stories from Sami poet and musician Niillas Holmberg, Icelandic crime writer Ragnar Jonasson and the Inuit poet and live artist Jessie Kleemann, while Shetland poets Christine De Luca and Rachel McCrum (pictured) will read newly commissioned translations and DJ Aikio will play contemporary music from the area. (David Pollock) ■ Charlotte Square Gardens, 0845 373 5888, 19 Aug, 9pm, free.
Even for a city with a good smattering of independent bookshops like Edinburgh, Word Power is a particular gem. This staunchly left-wing book shop hosts events throughout the year – including the Edinburgh Independent Radical Book Fair in autumn – but in August runs the Edinburgh Book Fringe, as a free alternative to the Book Festival at Charlotte Square. This year’s Book Fringe will kick off with an event
by Word Power-fan Mark Thomas (pictured, 14 Aug). Elsewhere, comedian Kate Smurthwaite hosts an event to mark the publication of The What The Frock! Book of Funny Women (15 Aug); the excellent poets Harry Giles, Marion McCready and Jennifer Williams read from anthology, Our Real Red Selves (22 Aug); and Janice Galloway chats about her work and reads from her latest, Jellyfish: A Short Book of Short Stories (28 Aug). Also appearing are poet Bashabi Fraser (18 Aug), official Yes Scotland artist Stewart Bremner (26 Aug) and Orwell Prize-winning Palestinian author Raja Shehadeh, among others. (Yasmin Sulaiman) ■ All events at Word Power Books, 43-45 West Nicolson Street, 662 9112, 14–28 Aug, various times, free.
AL KENNEDY Versatile author on festivals and Doctor Who
Discussing her hugely successful career, two-time Granta Best Young British Novelist AL Kennedy will be a big draw at the Book Festival, particularly given her recent commission to write Doctor Who novels – another feather in a cap that includes lecturing and stand-up comedy as well as book writing. Kennedy finds the Edinburgh audience one
that really cares about books. ‘A few festivals are courting TV and heavy corporate investment,’ she says. ‘As a result, they’re full of fake debates, artificially induced shouting and people who can’t walk about in public without a PA standing next to them.’ Describing Edinburgh as a ‘real’ festival, she says it is ‘still a place where people who think can go and be with other people who think, who are interested in the world, who want to learn and who like people – all the good stuff you don’t get from the mass media.’
The big question, of course, is how she’s been getting on with the Who novel. ‘It was slightly more fun and far more nostalgic than most of my writing – and I don’t usually work with existing characters,’ she says. ‘But otherwise, much the same.’ (Kevin Scott) ■ Charlotte Square Gardens, 0845 373 5888, 18 Aug, 1.30pm, £10 (£8).
ALI SMITH Critic Stuart Kelly considers Smith’s place in the literary pantheon
The plaudits and prizes just keep on rolling in for Ali Smith. Her most recent novel, the dual perspective How to Be Both, was shortlisted for the Booker and won the Goldsmiths Prize, a Costa Award and, most recently, the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. And she only went and got herself a CBE in the New Year Honours list. It’s quite a delicious thought that a copy of Hotel World might lurk on HRH’s bedside table. As she prepares for two EIBF appearances, Stuart Kelly, literary
critic and chair of her event on 16 August, has been pondering just what makes her writing so special. ‘Ali Smith is a mercurial writer, and I mean that in all the aspects of the Roman god,’ he states. ‘She’s about messages, gain and loss, trickery and the passage of souls to the beyond. Over her career, I think the most significant change is a kind of emerging elegiac and a decline of whimsy: some of her early work was thrillingly “look what I can do”; now it seems more like “observe what I must say”.’ While Smith has excelled in her novels, she is also the
acclaimed creator of deeply memorable short story collections, her work helping give that much-maligned form more respect. ‘Comparing short stories and novels is like comparing kettles and coconuts: the novel is about change, the short story about realisation. She does both pretty well to my mind.’ says Kelly. Now a published writer for 20 years, Smith clearly has plenty more books in the tank yet. But how does Kelly see her legacy being shaped? ‘I’ll let posterity decide that, but what I would say is that in the present, she has already forged a formidable oeuvre, which has gladdened and saddened and maddened me in equal measure.’ (Brian Donaldson) ■ Charlotte Square Gardens, 0845 373 5888, 16 Aug, 11.45am, £10 (£8); Smith also delivers the PEN / HG Wells Lecture, 15 Aug, 2.15pm, £10 (£8).
13–20 Aug 2015 THE LIST FESTIVAL 33