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NEWS AND EVENTS
Bookworld Prague 2004 - 10th International Book Fair, 6-9 May 2004
In May, Bookworld Prague, one of Europe's most important book fairs, will celebrate its tenth anniversary by welcoming Ireland, Scotland and Wales as its guests of honour. While these countries share a Celtic heritage, each has a rich literary tradition and a distinctive culture of its own. Modern writing in Irish, Scots, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and English, reflects concerns inherent in each tradition, while the theme of English dominance is seldom distant.
Writers from Ireland, Scotland and Wales - James Joyce, W. B. Yeats, Hugh MacDiarmid, Dylan Thomas - brought their influence to bear on twentieth-century literature and thought. But in the words of Welsh poet R. S. Thomas: 'Despite our speech we are not English'.
Among the twenty-five authors featured in the guest of honour programme are the Irish novelists Michael Collins, shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Keith Ridgeway, author of the celebrated novel The Long Falling; and Hugo Hamilton, one of the authors of the collective humorous take on Dublin and its literary tradition Yeats Is Dead!, coming out in Czech translation. The Irish non-fiction writer Brian Keenan will present the Czech edition of An Evil Cradling, a dramatic and moving account of his four-year captivity in Beirut. Poetry will be represented by John F. Deane, Peter Fallon and Moya Cannon from Ireland; the Belfast-based poet and musician Gearóid Mac Lochlainn; and Kevin MacNeil from Scotland. The poet and Forward Prize winner Robert Minhinnick, already familiar to Czech audiences, will be joined from Wales by the country's most celebrated fiction writer, Emyr Humphreys, and rising young novelist Tristan Hughes. The Scottish prose writer Louise Welsh, New Welsh Review editor Francesca Rhydderch and Irish author Eilís Ní Dhuibhne will launch new anthologies of contemporary women's writing from Ireland, Scotland and Wales in Czech translation.
The leading political and cultural analyst Neal Ascherson, former foreign correspondent with The Observer and author of the recent exploration of Scottish identity Stone Voices, will engage in a public debate about cultural identity and political exigency with Jan Morris from Wales, author of the Pax Britannica trilogy and consummate travel writer. They are joined by the distinguished scholar Declan Kiberd, whose work Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation changed perceptions of Ireland as a country defined by the English .
'Literature as a source of inspiration' is another central theme of the fair and The Book on Screen Film Festival, showing features and shorts connected with literature during the book fair week, highlights literature as the inspiration for other forms of art.
The guest of honour programme at Bookworld Prague is coordinated by Literature Across Frontiers in cooperation with the British Council in Prague, the Arts Councils of Ireland and Scotland, Wales Arts International, The Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism for Ireland 2004 Presidency of the European Union, Ireland Literature Exchange and Welsh Literature Abroad, the publishers' associations of Ireland and Scotland and the Welsh Books Council.
Literature Across Frontiers is supported by the Culture 2000 programme of the European Commission.
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