Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 Highlights 17–19 August

Irvine Welsh (2016 Event) With The Blade Artist, Irvine Welsh returns to the vicious Trainspotting character who's emerged as the best reflection of our angry times. Robert Carlyle, who memorably played Begbie in the iconic movie, claims that 'small psychos are the best', and his… Tice Cin: Three Women of Cyprus A few years ago, writer and artist Tice Cin won a Spread the Word award for literary fiction and it led to an Arvon Foundation writing course. There, Max Porter mentored her and she produced a manuscript that would become her debut novel, Keeping the… Sarah Moss: Unhappy Campers Soggy wellies and simmering resentments provide the backdrop to the latest novel from the scalpel-sharp Sarah Moss, who over the past decade has cemented a formidable reputation as one of Britain’s finest, wittiest writers. Summerwater takes us inside the… Fergal Keane with Allan Little: The Scars of War Reporting ‘The suffering of others was my daily bread.’ This brutally honest, heartfelt assessment of the job of a war reporter is central to Fergal Keane’s memoir, The Madness: a riveting account of how he survived war, fear, and PTSD, against a backdrop of… Michael Ignatieff: Consolation for Our Times The historian and political theorist Michael Ignatieff began writing a book about consolation before the first lockdown. Now, our lives changed by Covid-19, and with over 80 million refugees fleeing conflicts worldwide, On Consolation feels spectacularly… Denise Mina: Meta-Crime for the Internet Age Denise Mina grows more fascinating with every book she brings out. The first book in the Anna and Fin series was named a joint winner of the McIlvanny Prize for Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2019. Now, Confidence brings us another meta-story starring… Katie Kitamura: Familiarity and Contempt Regarded as a master of cool disquiet, a novelist of enchanting imagination and minimalist prose, Katie Kitamura has grown into one of America’s most respected authors. She’s also a favourite with other writers: her new novel Intimacies isn’t published… Lights Off The Quay - pt1 (A L Kennedy) We commissioned and published new stories and poems from four of the finest Scottish writers: A L Kennedy, Janice Galloway, John Burnside and Don Paterson. Lights Off The Quay, our first publication of new writing, is the result. A sold-out event at the… Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi: Uganda’s First Woman of Fiction Ugandan short story writer and novelist Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi burst onto the scene when she won The Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013 with her first novel Kintu. Since then, she’s garnered legions of readers and accolades including a Commonwealth… Philippe Sands with Ian Rankin: On the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive Philippe Sands’s celebrated 2016 memoir East West Street, expertly interwove the personal story of his ancestors in the Ukrainian city of Lviv with a professional interest in the establishment of international law in the aftermath of the Holocaust. His…