James Kelman

Shahad Al Rawi & Michael Donkor (2018 Event) Two coming-of-age tales come under the microscope in this event recorded live at the 2018 Edinburgh International Book Festival. Shahad Al Rawi’s poignant debut The Baghdad Clock (winner of the Book Festival's 2018 First Book Award) takes us back to 1991… Kenny MacAskill (2016 Event) In 2009, then Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill controversially granted the release on compassionate grounds of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the only man ever convicted for the Lockerbie Bombing in 1988. Now MacAskill has written his own account of the… Michèle Roberts & Helen Simpson (2010 event) Two remarkable writers led an exceptional Book Festival event in 2010. Joined by chair Steven Gale, Michèle Roberts and Helen Simpson discussed their sharp and moving short story collections to great effect… Museums and Libraries (2015 Event) Museums and galleries dominate as destinations, attracting record numbers of visitors to blockbuster shows. Meanwhile libraries are facing a funding crisis and are increasingly asked to justify their existence. What can libraries learn from museums, and… Ma Jian (2013 event) Ma Jian’s criticisms of China’s government led to it placing a blanket ban on all his future books in 1987. He participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and now… Sean Connery talks to Murray Grigor On his 78th birthday, 25 August 2008, Edinburgh-born international film legend Sean Connery launches his long-awaited book Being A Scot with his co-author and friend Murray Grigor at the Book Festival. Here he chats about a wide range of subjects with… Rutger Bregman: There is Hope for the Human Race (2020 Event) Superbly readable and full of fascinating evidence, historian Bregman’s book Humankind looks at how his optimistic analysis of human nature could play out in policy terms. Hyper-local participatory democracy? Schools with little or no curriculum? A change… Bonnie Greer (2014 event) Best known in the UK as a dispassionate commentator on BBC Newsnight Review and Question Time, even when sitting beside the leader of the BNP, Bonnie Greer has now written the first volume of her memoirs, A Parallel Life. In this event, recorded live at… Val McDermid & Jo Sharp: Shaping a Better Future (2020 Event) At last year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival, bestselling author Val McDermid and professor of geography Jo Sharp were inspired by the festival theme, We Need New Stories. So inspired, in fact, that they turned to a loveable rogues gallery of… Howard Jacobson Howard Jacobson, the celebrated novelist and leading cultural critic renowned for his ebullient wit and passion for literature and art, talks about his new novel An Act of Love in this 2008 event…