Jackie Kay

Ibram X Kendi talks to Deray Mckesson at the Edinburgh International Book Festival We all occasionally do things that are racist, yet often fail to recognise them. Ibram X Kendi is a founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center in Washington DC. How To Be an Antiracist is his extraordinary, inspiring guidebook which… Irvine Welsh The man who delved into the dark reality of contemporary Edinburgh was the first of the 2009 Book Festival's late evening events. Irvine Welsh here talks about his new collection Reheated Cabbage, which brings together an eclectic mix of stories capturing… Anne Enright with Vicky Featherstone: Mothers and Daughters (2020 Event) ‘You were always sitting in character, you were just never sure which one.’ So says Norah to the memory of her mother in Actress, the new novel by Anne Enright. The mother in question is Katherine O’Dell, who died aged 58 – the same age Norah has now… Abdel Bari Atwan Good natured chat from newspaper editor Abdel Bari Atwan as he recounts his journey from Palestinian refugee camps to the front page. One of the world's leading authorities on the Middle East, Atwan shares some of his extraordinary encounters… Marina Nemat - with Lewis Alsamari Iraqi exile Lewis Alsamari and Iranian Marina Nemat both wrote deeply moving and personal accounts of their experiences of escape to the West… Libraries in the Digital Age (2015 Event) With the world’s knowledge accessible from anywhere via a computer screen, why should we continue to value physical spaces for literacy? In this discussion, recorded live… Kit de Waal with Damian Barr at the Edinburgh International Book Festival The publishing world is finally waking up to the barriers that have prevented working class voices from being heard in books. Kit de Waal grew up in Birmingham’s Irish community and she has successfully broken into the mainstream with two highly acclaimed… Jesse Jackson (2015 Event) One of the best-respected and most formidable civil rights activists of the 20th century, the Reverend Jesse Jackson worked for Martin Luther King in the 1960s… Ian McEwan with Alex Salmond (2012 event) According to Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, his eclectic cultural interests range from Miss Marple… Dubravka Ugrešic Croatian writer Dubravka Ugrešić has won several major European literary awards and her books have been translated into more than twenty languages. In this event she introduces her new novel, Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, an extraordinary meditation on…