Edinburgh Literary festival

Is Irish poetry is finding new favour across the water? The BBC has been reporting that Seamus Heaney has become the top attraction at the upcoming Edinburgh Literary festival (12-28 August), an offshoot of the annual Arts festival.

Obviously, a Nobel Laureate will be a draw to any event, but this year competition is pretty fierce in what is becoming the premier literary event of the season. Roddy Doyle will be there in the run up to the September release of Paula Spencer, as will Kate Atkinson, Alexander McCall Smith and historian Simon Schama, all promoting new books. Further interest will be found in a series of themed speeches featuring Martin Amis, William Boyd and Margaret Atwood. As was the case in the 2005 festival, most of these writers will effectively be on tour and appearing concurrently in Dublin stores. 

The Master Comes Good

Much was made of Ian McEwan's Saturday finally winning a prize after being repeatedly passed over by other competition judges. More passed-over and certainly more deserving was Colm Tóibín's belated victory of the IMPAC prize for The Master, his outstanding re-imagining of Henry James' youth. The €100,000 prize will give him a cushion of comfort from which he can write his next book. This attention has also had a knock on effect on his Picador Shots short story, The Use of Reason, which is achieving strong sales in Dublin unlike some other titles in the series.