May 2008
Edinburgh Bookcase 2008
The British Council Literature Department and British Council Scotland are pleased to announce that we will provide a forum for intercultural dialogue through Literature at Edinburgh International Book Festival in partnership with the Scottish Arts Council from Thursday 14 - Monday 18 August this year. The Bookcase programme will offer readings, performances and discussion from a wide range of established and emerging authors from the UK with opportunities for interaction amongst the participants.
We are looking to identify new partners outside the UK who will lead to the creation of networks and innovative work for international markets. We welcome applications from programmers, translators, journalists, writers, teachers and others involved in the publishing, creative and knowledge economy. Good understanding of English is essential. Registration can be completed online now - click here for the registration survey.
The final date for registration is Monday 16 June. There will be a selection process and we shall inform successful applicants as soon as possible after this date.
The Palestine Festival of Literature
Sixteen international authors held the first International Literary Festival in Palestine in partnership with the British Council, the Al-Qattan Foundation, Bethlehem University, Birzeit University, Dar an-Nadwa in Bethlehem and Yabous Productions.
The Festival opened with an evening of readings around the idea of Journeys and Kin; best-selling historian and travel writer William Dalrymple, will be joined by British/Lebanese writer Hanan al-Shaykh and Scottish writer and journalist Andrew O’Hagan and others. Click here for more information on the event.
April 2008
IYPE and UKYPE Award Winners Announced
On behalf of the British Council, Cherie Blair presented Emma Hayley, Publisher at SelfMadeHero, Metro Media, with the UK Young Publisher Entrepreneur of the Year award 2008 at the British Council UKYPE awards ceremony on the final day of the London Book Fair (16 April). Click here for more information on the winners.
New Authors added to Contemporary Writers
The new authors added this month to the Contemporary writers website are: Leila Aboulela, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Daljit Nagra, Ifor Thomas, Redmond O'Hanlon and Philip Wells.
The London Book Fair and the Arab World
The Market Focus for the 2008 London Book Fair was the Arab World, defined as the 20 countries and two states which have Arabic as their registered official language. The main objectives of this Market Focus was to strengthen cultural relations with the Arab World, to educate the global publishing industry about Arab literature, and allow the Arab publishers to promote their books and literature to all parts of the world via the Fair. The London Book Fair ran from 14 – 16 April 2008. Click here for more information, and for a look at our related New Arabic Books website, which aims to bring Arabic books to English language readers, please click here.
March 2008
Making Creative Cities: the value of cultural diversity in the arts
This one day symposium took place on 18 March 2008 in Melbourne Australia and brought together leading arts practicioners, policy makers and commentators from around Australasia, the UK and the Phillippines to discuss the value of cultural diversity in the arts. Click here for more details.
Radiophonics: Call for Nigerian Writers
British Council Nigeria is starting a programme to promote literature development through radio. The programme will provide support from UK-based professional writers who delivered 5 day creative writing workshops in March. We hope to produce, record and air some of the pieces in collaboration with a broadcast partner in Nigeria later in 2008. Click here to view the new Radiophonics website and for more details on the project.
Poems on the Underground
The Winter set of Poems on the Underground focuses on poems by the leading Chinese poets Bei Dao and Yang Lian, with calligraphy by Qu Lei Lei. All three artists were active in the democracy movement in Beijing, and have lived mainly in exile since 1989. Their works passionately explore the theme of exile and the place of art in making sense of a fractured world. Click here for more information.
Ongoing
Read&Click@Europe
The final year of Animating Literature in North and Central Europe kicked off with a workshop in the Ukraine to bring together 28 teachers who have been working on British Council reading projects in their own countries. Groups of students in different counties are now reading the same short stories and poems online, taken from the New Writing anthology, BritLit and Reading the City resources, and holding reading circles in their country group. Using the EnCompass Culture website, the groups have online contact with their partners in at least two other countries. The teachers act as facilitators, helping the students use the texts as the basis for exploring each others’ cultures and Britain today.
'Postmodernism': Video conferences between Goldsmiths
and Palestine
The British Council in Palestine is to run a literature-focussed programme in partnership with Goldsmiths, University of London, and Palestinian universities on the topic of Postmodernism. The meetings will take place in the form of video conferences; there will be one meeting per month for two hours, from September 2007 to April or May 2008.
Each meeting will consist of a half-hour presentation by someone from Goldsmiths contextualising the particular aspect of Postmodernism under discussion. Following that will be a half-hour workshop between both sides on an essay / essays, circulated in advance, addressing the topic for that month’s meeting. The final hour will consist of a discussion of one primary text, partly in the light of the critical issues raised by the presentation and essay(s) circulated in advance. Further details about this project are to come.
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