Brilliant Fiction
About our events
“Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own…” says the magnificent Ann Patchett. Join her, and a constellation of fiction stars, as we bring you brilliant, visionary, and inventive storytellers spinning tales of history, fantasy, romance, and more. Featuring Scottish greats and visiting writers from over 40 countries, encompassing household names and first-time novelists, we invite you to see the world anew this August.
From Scotland, award-winning novelist Ali Smith shares her exuberant new anti-war novel, Glyph; Maggie O’Farrell arrives fresh from Hamnet’s incredible awards streak with her new title, Land; Fern Brady joins us with a special preview of her debut novel, High Energy Unpleasant; and Jenni Fagan’s hugely anticipated The Delusions imagines an afterlife run by cosmic (and comic) bureaucracy.
Evelyn Clarke (AKA Cat Clarke and V E Schwab’s writing partnership) discuss sinister thriller The Ending Writes Itself, Louise Welsh returns to Glasgow’s seedy underbelly in The Cut Up, and Tom Newlands’ Something Like Happiness confirms him as a name to watch after Scottish Book of the Year-winning Only Here, Only Now.
From further afield, Daniyal Mueenuddin’s debut novel, This is Where the Serpent Lives, transplants the great Russian novel to modern Pakistan; Colm Tóibín regales us with The News from Dublin in his new collection of short stories; Claudia Rankine explores truth, art, and fiction in Triage; and Matt Haig boards The Midnight Train towards the past mistakes we’d like to erase.
Ben Lerner explores the failures of technology and memory in Transcription; Candice Carty-Williams’ vibrant Queenie returns 10 years older and no wiser in Queenie is Working on It; and million-copy-selling fantasy author Samantha Shannon unpacks her newest title, Among the Burning Flowers.
Sales of fiction in translation in the UK are booming: celebrate with literary royalty from around the world, including two of Japan’s bestselling sensations – Mieko Kawakami (Sisters in Yellow) and Nao-Cola Yamazaki (Don’t Laugh At Other People’s Sex Lives); Spain’s Javier Cercas; cult French author Édouard Louis; and a trio of 2026 International Booker Prize nominees: Yáng Shuāng-zi with Taiwan Travelogue, Germany’s Daniel Kehlmann with The Director, and Shida Bazyar with The Nights are Quiet in Tehran.
List of Events
André Aciman: Stowaways
Global bestseller Call Me by Your Name showed us André Aciman’s gift for crafting delicately heartbreaking love stories. We're thrilled…
Elizabeth McCracken: A Long Game
Write what you know. Never miss a day. Kill your darlings. Elizabeth McCracken is having none of it. In A Long Game, the Guggenheim Fellow,…
Javier Cercas: The Anatomy of a Moment
February 1981. Shots ring out in Spain’s parliament. Cameras keep rolling. In The Anatomy of a Moment, one of Spain’s most important books…
Cynan Jones: Pulse
Master of the short form and winner of the BBC National Short Story Award Cynan Jones returns to the Festival with his precise and…
André Aciman & Sarah Maxwell-McNicol: Call Me by Your Name
André Aciman’s million-copy bestseller, Call Me by Your Name, was adapted for the screen to Oscar-winning success by James Ivory in 2017.…
Patrick Ryan: Buckeye
Patrick Ryan’s astonishing debut novel Buckeye earned him comparisons to J D Salinger and William Faulkner – and highest praise from his…Madeline Cash & Angela Tomaski: Ruin Runs in the Family
Family legends, open marriages, sibling chaos, criminal conspiracies: two standout debut novelists bring riotous new energy to the family…
Maggie O’Farrell: Land
Beginning on a windswept peninsula on the west of Ireland and charting a journey spanning generations, Land is Maggie O’Farrell’s most…
Natsuo Kirino: Swallows
Natsuo Kirino’s complex feminist noir crime novels have awarded her cult status in Japan and abroad. Her latest, Swallows, follows a woman…