Etgar Keret and Alain Mabanckou (2015 Event)

Two internationally acclaimed novelists who have turned their hands to memoir talk to Nick Barley, director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Etgar Keret was declared ‘a genius’ by the New Yorker: The Seven Good Years, translated into English by Sondra Silverston, Miriam Shlesinger, Jessica Cohen and Anthony Berris, is his account of raising a son in Tel Aviv, while also losing his father. Alain Mabanckou is francophone Africa’s best-loved writer. He left Congo-Brazzaville when he was 22, and The Lights of Pointe-Noire, translated by Helen Stevenson, is a moving account of the enduring meaning of home – but also the town where a million slaves were sold.