2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival: Recent Episodes
Edinburgh International Book Festival
The Book Festival welcomed hundreds of authors from countries across the world to take part in over 900 events. Literary heavyweights joined popular bestsellers and talented newcomers in the Book Festival’s home, a specially-created tented village in central Edinburgh. They shared their stories with audiences, discussed the hot topics of the day and offered inspiring new perspectives on a vast range of subjects including globalisation, sport, feminism, music, Brexit, art, race, America, the environment and much, much more. You can listen to some of the talks in this free series of podcasts, recorded live, and offering a small taste of what the Edinburgh International Book Festival had to offer in August 2017.
The short, sharp and funny shock has been Brian Limond aka Limmy’s forte ever since breaking through with his World of Glasgow web series in 2006. After a Scottish BAFTA-winning TV show, Limmy has turned his attention to books of tiny tales (some hilarious, some sinister) and That’s Your Lot is his latest weird and wonderful collection, which he tells you all about in his own inimitable style in this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival.
In The Strange Death of Europe, Douglas Murray travels from places where migrants land to places where they end up, talking to people who welcome them and others who don't, and finds a continent in a serious muddle. In On Fantasy Island, Conor Gearty, Director of the LSE's Institute of Public Affairs, explores another area of confusion, Europe and the Human Rights Act, and suggests a way forward. Hear the pair discuss their books in this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, chaired by Rosemary Burnett.
While comedy still struggles with gender equality, the spoken word scene is well used to its biggest, most exciting exports being female. Following in the footsteps of Kate Tempest and Hollie McNish, we bring you some of the most exciting new talents in spoken word. Jemima Foxtrot, Iona Lee, Sabrina Mahfouz and Sophia Walker perform their work relating to (and not relating to) themes of womanhood. Chaired by Becky Fincham.
Meet the man who is a World Poetry Slam Champion turned full-time poet via a maths degree. Following on from his debut collection, The Sunshine Kid, Harry Baker brings a selection of old favourites and brand new poems to this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival. Performing with a mix of hope and humour, he has already won the hearts and minds of audiences all over the world.
The Last Poets were formed in the US in the late 1960s, a period full of hope and a time when the Black Panthers were at the height of their power. Their performance poetry has influenced generations of musicians, securing them the title of ‘the founding fathers of hip-hop’. Coming from New York to Scotland for the first time for this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, The Last Poets - Umar Bin Hassan, Abiodun Oyewole and Baba Donn Babatunde - discuss their incredible lives with their friend and author Christine Otten, whose book is based on their story.
What is it to be male? Peep Show actor Robert Webb reckons it involves a heap of unnecessary pressure applied from a very early age. With his call-to-arms memoir How Not To Be A Boy, Webb considers his own inculcation into the cult of man and how bending those stringent rules is not easy in a world which expects males to have a certain, well, maleness about them. Hear from him in this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Feats of human endurance never cease to amaze and enthral. In 2012, against all odds, Juliana Buhring became the first woman to circumnavigate the world on a bike, after very little training and with barely any financial backing. In this event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, Buhring tells us about her upbringing, which is both fascinating and shocking. Saddle up for a classic Book Festival ride.
Brave, intelligent and deeply personal, Where the Line is Drawn shows how the Israeli occupation affects every aspect of Palestinian daily life. Raja Shehadeh, Palestine's premier writer and essayist, winner of the 2008 Orwell Prize and founder of the human rights organisation Al-Haq, asks whether bitter enemies can put aside their differences and find a common cause in the name of peace. This event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, is chaired by William Sutcliffe.
Inspired by J B Priestley’s 1949 book Delight, Daniel Gray celebrates 50 reasons to love books in Scribbles in the Margins. His previous book, Saturday, 3pm, did something similar for football. Join the Edinburgh-based author and STV's People's Historian for a joy-filled celebration of our favourite pastime in this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival.
It's been 30 years since the publication of the first Rebus novel and what better way to celebrate that fact than with one of Scotland's most successful writers, Ian Rankin, who comes with his latest tale featuring the troubled Edinburgh cop. Rather Be the Devil drags Rebus back to an unsolved murder four decades prior, while power plays stoke some bitter rivalries and unveil deep-rooted corruption. Rankin chats to Magnus Linklater in this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival.
From Dickens to Vermeer and psychoanalysis to neuroscience, Siri Hustvedt is a writer of remarkable range and insight. In this event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, she talks to acclaimed Turkish novelist and writer Elif Shafak about the self, bodily experience and the role of women in public intellectual life. Both writers include novels as well as non-fiction in their oeuvre, and both are fascinated by the power of fiction to identify deeper truths.
Richard Ford is one of America’s greatest writers, capturing the changing face of the USA since the late 70s. He writes of the human condition with wit, passion and an uncanny observational eye. His beloved country has gone through seismic shifts in the past 18 months with many questioning what's next. In this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, he talks to BBC Newsnight's Kirsty Wark to explore the reality of the American Dream today.
Two of the finest writers working in America today take a tour around the dark history of their country. Paul Auster called Laird Hunt's last novel Neverhome 'magnificent'; The Evening Road is his latest, which he discusses in this event, and it's a novel 'as audacious as it is lyrical'. Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad has already won him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in fiction - listen to the full event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, to find out why. Chaired by Jenny Niven.
What makes a woman a woman? Is it her biology? Is it a rite of passage? Is it society? As she transitions from male to female, Juno Dawson's The Gender Games explores feminism and femininity in culture, science and society. Co-founder of the first national group for young LGBTI people in the UK, academic and activist C N Lester's Trans Like Me analyses the most pressing questions of the transgender debate. In this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, the pair discuss these issues and more.
One of the most acclaimed writers of his generation, poet, memoirist and novelist John Burnside treats us to two new works. The hugely praised Ashland & Vine is the beautifully woven tale of an unlikely friendship between a grieving, semi-alcoholic widow and the elderly woman of whom she hopes to record the family history; Still Life with Feeding Snake is a poetry collection which hovers with great assurance on the brink of epiphany. Chaired by Stuart Kelly, this event was recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival.
For decades we’ve been told there's something out there. Jim Al-Khalili, host of Radio 4’s The Life Scientific and an inaugural winner of the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication, has been gathering the latest word from within the science community about those little green folks (if that’s what they'll look like) and their potential existence. An enthusiastic speaker, Al-Khalili brought us his new book, Aliens, in this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival.
When Harriet Harman was elected in 1982, she notes in her memoir A Woman’s Work, the House of Commons was 97% male. Since then, she has led the way on all-women shortlists, introduced laws on equality and domestic violence and has twice become Labour’s Acting Leader. In this event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, we meet a feminist politician who has made a real difference. Chaired by Ruth Wishart.
Comic Andy Hamilton has most likely had you bent double with laughter. As well as appearances on panel shows like Have I Got News For You, he co-created Outnumbered and Drop the Dead Donkey, and has written for everything from Not the Nine O’Clock News to The Two Ronnies. In this event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, he discusses his debut novel, The Star Witness, about a soap star whose life is set to unravel horribly.
In the 1990s, Stephen Baxter won almost every award going for The Time Ships – the sequel to H G Wells’s The Time Machine. In this event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, he brings us his new book, The Massacre of Mankind, also approved by Wells’s estate, which updates The War of the Worlds, the most popular science fiction book on the planet. The martians, it seems, may not be so vulnerable to our germs after all. Baxter discusses his work with 2017 Guest Selector Ken MacLeod.
As part of our project to explore the Americas, leading Mexican playwright Ximena Escalante travelled across Mexico with Scottish theatre writer Stef Smith. Starting in the US city of San Diego, they journeyed south across the Mexican border, making their way to Mexico City, Oaxaca and Merida before arriving at the country’s southern border with Guatemala. In this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival they share some of their unforgettable experiences, and some of the writing inspired by the journey.
Please note: this recording features strong language and adult content.
Part of our Outriders series of events.
Supported through the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund
As part of our project to explore the Americas, Scottish novelist Kevin MacNeil travelled around Argentina with journalist, novelist and short story writer Mariana Enriquez. Starting in Buenos Aires, the writers set off in search of lost voices, both literary and of other citizens within the capital city. MacNeil travelled across the Pampas to the city of Cordoba, while Enriquez embarked on her own journey into the imagination of a Scottish writer, both in search of UFOs. In this event recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival they share some of their unforgettable experiences, and some of the writing inspired by the journey. Chaired by Nick Barley.
Part of our Outriders series of events.
As part of our Outriders project to explore the Americas, Boston novelist Jennifer Haigh travelled with Scottish writer Malachy Tallack on a journey that took in the Midwestern heartlands of Donald Trump’s USA. Starting in Fargo, they visited the site of the Dakota Pipeline protests before travelling south through Tennessee and Mississippi and arriving in Louisiana. Along the way, they met the reclusive writer Wendell Berry and members of the Black Lives Matter movement. In this event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, they share some of their unforgettable experiences, and some of the writing inspired by the journey.
Indian poet, novelist, activist and author of The Gypsy Goddess Meena Kandasamy has won many plaudits for her writing. In this event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, she discusses When I Hit You, a provocative examination of an abusive marriage. Joining her is Saltire First Book Award-winner Helen McClory, whose Flesh of the Peach describes an artist’s American road trip after her mother’s death. Explore the wilder shores of love and loss with these two rising stars of fiction. Chaired by Lee Randall.
Motorcycle adventurer Charley Boorman experienced every rider’s worst fear when he was involved in a major road accident in 2016. Doubts were raised whether he would ever walk again, never mind get back on his bike, but in this event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, he recalls a long journey of recovery and how he contemplated many aspects of his life during his difficult rehabilitation. Chaired by Janet Ellis.
In this keynote lecture recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, the country’s foremost essayist and one of our most astute commentators, Andrew O’Hagan, speaks for the first time on the future of Scotland and seeks to define this moment of change. Brexit has fundamentally changed the picture. The question, O’Hagan argues, is now beyond nationalism: it is about Scotland’s potential as a progressive, exemplary, enlightened, international country of the future.
As part of our Outriders project to explore the Americas, poet Harry Giles travelled across Canada with Métis writer Katherena Vermette. Starting in Montreal amid the buzzy Quebecois writing scene, the two writers travelled to Winnipeg, where Lord Selkirk’s Red River colony was set up to house farmers displaced by Scotland’s Clearances. From there, the writers flew north to the small town of Churchill – known as the polar bear capital of the world. In this event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, they share some of their unforgettable experiences, and some of the writing inspired by the journey.
Journalist Julie Burchill calls her 'a breath of fresh air, with a dirty laugh'. In Everywoman, Labour politician Jess Phillips shouts long and loudly about the things she cares most about: poverty, equality, the rights of refugees and serving her Birmingham Yardley constituents. If you didn't know before why she's created such a storm in Parliament, you will after listening to this event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival.
Anyone who has heard Sebastian Barry read from his work knows he’s one of the best in the business. Anyone who has read Days Without End, his impossibly tender novel set in mid-19th century America, knows that it's another great work from the Costa Book of the Year-winning author and is surely in with a chance of bagging him another clutch of awards. This event, recorded live at the 2017 Edinburgh International Book Festival, is therefore an unmissable treat.