Free the Word! London 2010: Programme Announced


A Festival of Literature Celebrating the Best Contemporary Writing from Around the World
14th-18th April 2010

Come and enjoy a global feast of words at the Free the Word! festival of world literature. Back for the third year running, Free the Word! 2010 is set to take London on an international journey of words, through conversations with the great writers you know and the great writers you don't.

Staged by International PEN, the worldwide community of writers, the festival will take place in London from 14th - 18th April 2010, at the Southbank Centre, Southwark Playhouse, Young Vic, Foyles, LSE and the Free Word Centre.

This year's festival theme of ‘Words, Words, Nothing but Words ...?' offers a reader's box of delights. Events range from interrogating the graphic nature of crime writing to the rise of the graphic novel, from hearing the stories of international bestselling writers to listening to the voices of up-and-coming talents.

The festival will also be hosting a variety of events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of International PEN's Writers in Prison Committee, set up in 1960 as a result of mounting concern about attempts to silence critical voices around the world.

‘Free the Word! is International PEN in spirit and action - a festival for authors and readers to make sparks across the divide between national literatures.' Sir Tom Stoppard

Showcasing the best writing from around the globe, festival highlights include:
From the great writers you know:

•Celebrating their 80th birthdays this year, the father of African writing, Chinua Achebe, via live video link from New York, and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott will be reading from their work in a dazzling event showcasing a glittering array of revolutionary writers and writing in Reading Revolutionaries.

•Richard Ford, one of America's greatest living writers, makes an exclusive UK appearance at Free the Word! 2010. Best known for his novels The Sportswriter and Independence Day, Ford will be in conversation with journalist, critic and bestselling author Blake Morrison.

•Booker Prize winner James Kelman will be discussing what happens to stories when language is passed across cultures and seas through conquest and independence with Commonwealth Prize winner Olive Senior and publisher, writer, journalist and critic Margaret Busby OBE in The Ex-Empire Strikes Back.

•Free the Word! 2010 will also offer a rare chance to experience the world of one of Egypt's most celebrated and outspoken writers, Nawal El Saadawi. A novelist and psychiatrist, she has published over 40 books of fiction and non-fiction and can be heard in conversation with Lisa Appignanesi, President of English PEN.
And the great writers awaiting discovery include:

•Natalia Morari - a Moldovan investigative journalist for the Russian magazine New Times, Morari's writing has led her to be banned from entering Russia and she has been arrested for staging mass disturbances. An organiser of the 2009 ‘Twitter Revolution' in Moldova, she helped facilitate a flash-mob protest with fellow activists through social networking sites which turned from a peaceful gathering of 300 into a 10,000 strong demonstration lasting several days. Morari appears at Free the Word! 2010 on Thursday 15th April in the Crime Writing/Is Writing a Crime? Event and on Sunday 18th April in the Literary Lunch.

•Irakli Kakabadze - Born in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, Kakabadze is a writer, performance artist, peace and human rights activist. One of the first Georgian writers to focus on controversial issues of drugs and violence, Kakabadze was a co-founder of the Civic Disobedience Committee and Theatre for Change which significantly contributed to the Rose Revolution. Arrested four times in 2006 as a result of his views, Kakabadze received a Lilian Hellman/Hammet grant in 2007 from Human Rights Watch which helps writers confront and survive persecution. Since then he has lived in exile in the US. He will be participating in The Writers in Prison Committee 50th Anniversary Celebration and The Insulting Cabaret events at Free the Word! 2010 on Friday 16th April.

•Leonardo Padura - Born in 1955, Padura studied in Havana and remained in Cuba throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, when the country underwent an economic crisis as Russian aid disappeared. He has been a journalist, editing the leading cultural magazine, La Gazeta de Cuba, but is best known for his Havana Quartet series of crime novels featuring Inspector Mario Conde. Padura has won numerous awards, including the Spanish award for detective fiction, the Premio Hammett. He still lives in Havana in the barrio where he grew up with his wife, the journalist Lucia Lopez Coll. Padura appears at Free the Word! 2010 alongside Natalia Morari in Crime Writing/ Is Writing a Crime? on Thursday 15th April and Literary Lunch on Sunday 18th April.

Other authors confirmed to attend this years festival include Korash Atahan (Uyghur of Uyghuristan/Germany), Sujata Bhatt (India/Germany), Duncan Campbell (UK), Cristina Ali Farah (Somalia/Italy), Maureen Freely (US/UK), Paul Gravett (UK), Daniel Hahn (UK), Ala Hlelel (Palestine), Maya Jaggi (UK), John Mateer (South Africa/Australia), Pauline Melville (UK/Guyana), Deon Meyer (South Africa), Rutu Modan (Israel), Daljit Nagra (UK), Donato Ndongo-Bidyogo (Equatorial Guinea/Spain), Amruta Patil (India), Zurab Rtveliashvili (Kazakhstan/Georgia), Adania Shibli (Palestine), Gillian Slovo (South Africa/UK), Jakob Strid (Denmark), Ross Sutherland (UK), Victor Teran (Mexico), Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Colombia) and Michela Wrong (UK).

Further details of the festival can be found at www.internationalpen.org.uk from February and tickets can be booked direct with each venue.

Free the Word! London 2010 is sponsored by Bloomberg, the European Union and UNESCO and supported by Arts Council England.

http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/go/news/free-the-word-london-2010-programme-announced
http://www.internationalpen.org.uk/files/dmfile/FreetheWord2010programme.pdf