Howard Jacobson

Kevin Barry (2016 Event) Kevin Barry’s Beatlebone won the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize for ‘fiction at its most novel’. The phrase seems apt: even though this is a story built from familiar elements – an imagined John Lennon, post-Beatles in 1978, trying to pay a visit to an isle off… Julia Donaldson reading Ballad of Jemmy Button The massively popular children's writer and new Children's Laureate reading her contribution to our Elsewhere series of stories… William Fotheringham (2014 event) Long before Bradley Wiggins took the world by storm, British cycling already had a hero. Tom Simpson was world champion and the first Briton to wear yellow in the Tour de France. In 1967 he died during a stage of the Tour while climbing the monstrous Mont… Andrew O'Hagan A magnificently intelligent essayist, novelist, critic, and a mesmerising speaker. Andrew O'Hagan talks to Magnus Linklater in this 2008 event about politics, Scotland and his recent collection of reportage on a declining Britain and a rising America, The… Niall Ferguson (2011 Event) Are we living through the dying embers of Western ascendancy? For Scottish historian and broadcaster Niall Ferguson, the ‘killer applications’ test is the best way to measure our status with the rest of the world… Simmone Howell (2010 schools event) Eclectic Australian children's writer Simmone Howell joined us for a brilliant event for schools in 2010. Suitable for S2 - S6, she talked about place, people and invention in this fascinating and charming event… Alaa Al Aswany (2016 Event) In 2002, The Yacoubian Building was an international bestseller, establishing Alaa Al Aswany as one of the Arab world’s most influential voices. Since then, Egypt has changed radically. However, Al Aswany’s novel The Automobile Club of Egypt represents… Martin Amis (2104 Event) The last time Martin Amis wrote about the Holocaust was in 1991 in his novel Time’s Arrow. Now he returns to the subject with the much-anticipated The Zone of Interest. In this event, recorded live at the 2014 Edinburgh International Book Festival… Meera Syal (2015 Event) Acclaimed actor, screenwriter and author of Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee, Meera Syal returned to Edinburgh for the first time since 2000 to discuss her new novel. The House of Hidden Mothers moves between East London’s Little India and a… Lemn Sissay at the Edinburgh International Book Festival One of Britain's best loved poets, Lemn Sissay is a performer of rare passion. But growing up with foster families and in care homes, Sissay struggled with his identity. The discovery of his birth name and Ethiopian background is the catalyst for…