Garth Greenwell: Intimate Truths

BSL

The annual Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Awards delights in taking bundles of limbs and badly chosen adjectives, removing them from their context and mocking them for their unsexiness.

But there is real power in its opposite: by capturing the truth of physical encounters the finest literature can — without prurience or pornography — illuminate raw truths about being alive. And in this, Garth Greenwell is without peer.

With spare, passionate language that revisits and builds on the world of his celebrated debut What Belongs to You, the author has created a sublime, glorious novel which unfolds over nine interlinking stories. In Cleanness, his unnamed narrator provides a searing examination of foreignness, intimacy, memory and desire as he reflects on his life in Sofia, Bulgaria. 

In conversation with Damian Barr, Garth Greenwell expands on his novel’s haunting meditations on our public and private selves.

This is a live event, with an author Q&A.

Book Festival News

Book Festival reveals first author events for 2024 Book Festival reveals first author events for 2024
Sunday 14 April

Enjoying this event? You can help us produce more like it.

Donate

Share

Watch more

Beneath the Covers: Best Marketing Strategies of 2022 Beneath the Covers: Best Marketing Strategies of 2022 It’s one thing to write a great book. It’s a different challenge to get people to buy it. This event gives a glimpse of creative book marketing with some of the industry professionals shortlisted for the British Book Award. Join founders of Edinburgh … Cherie Jones: Behind the Barbadian Picture Postcard Cherie Jones: Behind the Barbadian Picture Postcard Barbados: the iconic location of runaway honeymoons, white sandy beaches, turquoise and diamond seawater, palm trees and cocktails. Cherie Jones tells a different tale, revealing the hidden – or rather ignored and invisible – side of this supposedly p… Linn Ullmann: Portrait of a Family Linn Ullmann: Portrait of a Family ‘I was his child and her child, but not their child,’ Linn Ullmann writes in Unquiet, ‘it was never us three.’ This sense of dispossession and longing haunt the pages of the Norwegian literary star’s elusive, quietly devastating novel; the story… Interview - Helle Helle (2015) Interview - Helle Helle (2015) We were delighted to meet the wonderful Danish writer Helle Helle before her Book Festival event in Charlotte Square Gardens to talk about her first novel to be translated into English, This Should Be Written in the Present Tense. We asked some audie… Alain Mabanckou: Rewriting the Congolese Story Alain Mabanckou: Rewriting the Congolese Story On 18 March 1977 at 14.30, the third President of the People’s Republic of the Congo, Marien Ngouabi, is assassinated. In the frenzied aftermath, blame flies and ethnic divides widen, and far away, a family member is murdered for their alleged involveme… Lea Ypi with Allan Little: What Does Freedom Mean in Europe? Lea Ypi with Allan Little: What Does Freedom Mean in Europe? Albania was one of the world’s most isolated countries under the rule of Enver Hoxha during its communist period. Lea Ypi grew up under Hoxha, then witnessed communism’s collapse and the country’s transformation to a flawed market economy. Today, Yp… Mat Osman: The Fickle Friend of Fortune Mat Osman: The Fickle Friend of Fortune A founding member of Suede and the brother of chart-topping crime fiction sensation Richard Osman, Mat Osman visits Edinburgh to discuss his hugely exciting second book The Ghost Theatre. A dazzling punk re-imagining of Elizabethan London, this historical… David Hendy: 100 Years of the BBC David Hendy: 100 Years of the BBC Media historian David Hendy looks back on a century of hustle and bustle at a defining cultural institution. The BBC: A People’s History delves into the archives to share the stories of typists and runners, presenters and foreign correspondents from the… Mark Haddon talks to Charlotte Higgins at the Edinburgh International Book Festival Mark Haddon talks to Charlotte Higgins at the Edinburgh International Book Festival Mark Haddon is back with his first novel in seven years – and this could be his masterwork. The author behind The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time takes us on another wildly imaginative adventure in The Porpoise, a modern-day reworking of S… Viet Thanh Nguyen: Through the Eyes of a Vietnamese Refugee Viet Thanh Nguyen: Through the Eyes of a Vietnamese Refugee In 1975, at the age of four, Viet Thanh Nguyen fled from Vietnam with his family. Like so many others, these refugees from their war-torn country ended up in America. Fortunately, Nguyen is blessed with a stellar command of the written word and has produc…