Edinburgh Castle

Francesca Beard and Graham Sutcliffe

Artist on the Royal Mile

The fourth showcase on contemporary literature - the Bookcase - took place as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival between 17 - 21 August 2006. This year the Bookcase attracted a record number of 67 participants nominated by British Council offices from places as diverse as Estonia, India, Iraq, Russia, Sudan, Vietnam and the USA.

The Bookcase is jointly organised by the Literature Department in London and British Council Scotland and is financially supported by the Scottish Arts Council. This year's Bookcase featured over 60 individual writers performing their work, including many names in fiction writing: such as Helen Dunmore, David Lodge, Alexander McCall Smith, and Ali Smith. Poets included: Ciaran Carson, Menna Elfyn, John Hegley, Robin Robertson and Hugo Williams.

Signing books at Edinburgh

Authors in Newcastle

The Young Arab Writers’ Tour took place during August and was organised by magazine, the British Council and The Reading Agency. The writers Abed Ismael from Syria, Ala Hlehel from Palastine, Mansoura Ez-Eldin from Egypt and Joumana Haddad from Lebanon, gave performance readings to enthusiastic audiences in London, Derby, Chesterfield, Manchester, South Shields and with a tour finalé at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Throughout the tour the writers wrote weblogs about their experiences on our Literary Translation website.

Over the last three months we have had a series of online chats with children's authors on our website www.encompassculture.com. Primary school teachers in Bilbao chatted with award-winning author and illustrator Lauren Child, teenagers from schools in the UK chatted with Carnegie Medal winner Mal Peet. A young reading group from Chennai in India had a lively chat with Kate Greenaway Medal-shortlisted author, Oliver Jeffers.