Raja Shehadeh

Matt Haig at the Edinburgh International Book Festival The modern world can make us feel like the walls are closing in, but a vanguard of writers are here to help us cope – and none more so than Matt Haig. After the storming success of Reasons to Stay Alive comes Notes on a Nervous Planet, a wise and… Robert Coover (2011 Event) The reissue of his early novels as Penguin Classics in 2011 underlines his status as a giant of American literary postmodernism. Stories like Spanking the Maid, Gerald's Party and Pricksongs and Descants show that a mordant… David Almond reading Paper Boat Paper Plane Multi-award-winning children's author reads his story on the theme of Elsewhere… Hallie Rubenhold: The Problem with Great Men (2020 Event) Of the five women who died in the Autumn of 1888 at the hands of Jack the Ripper, the most salient thing that has remained in the public imagination has been the brutal manner of their murders. While the identity of the murderer has been the subject of… Edna O'Brien (2016 Event) Philip Roth called it Edna O’Brien’s masterpiece; for John Banville it’s savage, tender and true; Claire Messud described it as arduous and beautiful. The Little Red Chairs is the work of a truly great Irish writer at the height of her powers. A decade… Jim Al-Khalili (2017 Event) 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… Arundhati Roy with Nicola Sturgeon at the Edinburgh International Book Festival What did Arundhati Roy do between the publication of her Booker-winning debut The God of Small Things in 1997 and her extraordinary follow-up, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness two decades later? In a stunning new book of essays, we have the definitive… Elizabeth Laird reading Red Wolves in the Mist An engaging new story by a much-admired author of young adult fiction, read by the author herself… The Voices in Our Heads: Creating Characters in Fiction (2014 event) The first sign that a book works is when the characters talk back to their author, and books can represent our internal voices unlike any other art form. A panel of award-winning novelists, Nathan Filer, Edward Carey and Matthew Quick talk about their… Reggie Nadelson in conversation with Ian Rankin (2010 event) In this event crime writing extraordinaire Reggie Nadelson discussed the ventures of her brilliantly believable detective, with Edinburgh’s own favourite crime writer, Ian Rankin. The charismatic pair are well worth a listen – and another listen after…