Unbound is back

This year’s line up includes new American writing talent presented by giant US literary magazine The Paris Review, an evening with contemporary Australian authors hosted by independent Melbourne-based publishing house Sleepers, the iconic singer-songwriter Kristin Hersh, and the Festival’s first ever Literary Death Match, the cultural phenomenon currently sweeping the globe pitching teams of writers against each other with words as their weapon of choice.

Scottish talent appearing at Unbound comes in the form of the Edinburgh spoken word collective Writers’ Bloc, the legendary Glasgow literary night Words Per Minute and there will be an evening of fine entertainment courtesy of The Golden Hour. We will also be paying tribute to one of Edinburgh’s brightest stars, the late Paul Reekie, who will be honoured in a very special event featuring Irvine Welsh, Gordon Legge, Vic Godard and many more of Reekie’s close friends and colleagues. Unbound will be brought to a close in splendid style by Scottish comedian cum writer Des Dillon.

Roland Gulliver, Programme Manager of the Edinburgh International Book Festival said, “We are thrilled to be presenting the second Unbound programme at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival. The first year was a journey of discovery and we were thrilled by how much fun everyone had. In 2011 we are looking to build on that success, to create a programme full of energy, excitement and a little bit of the unknown.”

Unbound, which is supported through the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund, is completely free and unticketed. The full programme can be found on our website and also in the July issue of The Skinny.