Loose Leaves/Sadbh: Crime, campaigning politics, dissident journalists and the concerns of a young, emerging generation are among the aspects of Russian life that will come in for analysis at this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival which has as one of its focuses life in Russia and in various former Soviet Union countries.
Writers from more than 30 countries will be holding court at the traditional venue of Charlotte Square Gardens from next Saturday, when the bookfest starts, until August 29th. With more than 600 events scheduled, you can't get to everything, but one very appealing aspect of Edinburgh is the huge children's programme, so if you want to build it into the family holiday that is eminently possible. A number of the Russian events will feature journalist Anna Politkovskaya; a critic of the current regime, she was called in to mediate in the Moscow theatre siege. Novelist Andrey Kurkov and journalist Grigory Pasko will join her in one session to look at what lies ahead for Russia now.
In an exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland photographs, films, emblems and writings to do with the Romanovs will be on display with various curators giving insights into the doomed dynasty and their Scottish connections. Poet and novelist Elaine Feinstein, in Dublin recently, will give the Scottish Pen Lecture; her book on the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova has just been published. And, in a double bill, Russianologist Catriona Kelly, author of Comrade Pavlik, about a Russian child, who - in death - became a communist folk hero, will appear with Chrystia Freeland who will track Russia's recent path from communism to capitalism.
Inevitably, Scottish writers loom large at the festival - more than 170 this year - but the Irish contingent is sizeable as well as distinguished. Fiction writers John Banville and Eugene McCabe share a double bill, as do Neil Belton and Dermot Bolger. Poet Colette Bryce and novelist Sebastian Barry will attend,
as will Carlo Gébler who will talk about his recent book on the Siege of Derry.
A particularly interesting session will include poet Thomas Lynch appearing alongside Fintan O'Toole (below) at an event titled "Ireland and America" and billed as an hour of cross-Atlantic confluence. O'Toole will talk about his new book on an Irish-born British official William Johnson and his extraordinary life in 18th-century frontierland America, while Lynch, reversing the journey, will discuss his new book of essays about his return to his family's roots in Co Clare.
Predictably, now that terrorism has landed with full force in Britain, the subject will also be up for discussion coupled with debates on human rights abuses and international law.
Other writers attending include American novelist Michael Cunningham, author - most recently - of the novel Specimen Days; Ruth Padel whose book on tigers has been well received; commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown; Spanish novelist Javier Cercas; veteran South African writer André Brink and veteran US writer John Irving, whose latest novel Until I Find You is just out. Also worth watching out for are photographer Don McCullin, who has lately been training his lens on Africa, and naturalist Richard Mabey, who will speak about his recent book in which he described how nature helped him emerge from depression.
Roméo Dallaire, author of Shake Hands with the Devil, about his time in charge of the peacekeeping forces in Rwanda, is also taking part, as is Salman Rushdie who will focus on his forthcoming book Shalimar the Clown. Post-colonialism scholar Homi Bhabha is also attending.
www.edbookfest.co.uk
Woolf's light still shines
Good news for literary landmark fanatics: the lighthouse that inspired Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse has got a reprieve. The lighthouse authority in Britain was contemplating closing Godrevy Island's lighthouse in St Ives Bay, Cornwall, near where the writer's family holidayed when she was a child, but decided that it was still needed for navigational purposes. While it was mainly pressure from sailors and fishing folk that saved it, literati everywhere will be pretty pleased too.
Chattering about art
The inaugural Ranelagh Arts Festival will take place in the Dublin village from September 28th to October 2nd. While the event will cross many art forms, there are a number of literary events, including an afternoon of poetry and music with Macdara Woods. Terry Connaughton of the festival committee said the idea grew when a number of residents realised all they ever talked about was house prices - legendarily high in Ranelagh - and that people were more concerned with this than with the community spirit the village once had; hence the festival.