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Hay-on-Wye. What images does this name conjure up? The meandering River Wye, the few streets of pretty houses, the ruined castle, the inviting pubs and inns. A Mecca for antiquarian and second-hand booksellers. A Mecca, too, for nature-lovers with the wildness of the Brecon Beacons beckoning and the night-time noise of owls and lambs. And once a year it becomes the bustling home to writers from all over the world, buzzing with conversation and debate, readings and performances. But beware, once a visitor has tasted of the Guardian Hay Festival, like the fairy food of Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Market, he or she is under its spell and will have to go back for more. All the more so this year, for added to the menu is some delicious German-language literature and a highly distinguished Swiss actor. (The programme is not final until published.)
Hay Festival Director Peter Florence on German literature in translation:
‘It’s wonderful to have such fantastic titles eligible this year. It feels like a breakthrough year, with a smart promotional backup from New Books in German. Books are catching up with film at last.’
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The Edinburgh Book Festival is an incredibly vibrant affair. The city is alive with the buzz of the festival so that just walking through the parks and squares is an experience. Whether you’re an old-hand at the festival, or coming to it for the first time (perhaps drawn to the city by the novels of Ian Rankin, Muriel Spark, or the Isabel Dalhousie books by Alexander McCall Smith), there’s a staggering choice of events to sample, voices known and new. Last year the Book Festival hosted 700 events at Charlotte Square Gardens featuring 650 authors from 40 countries.
Catherine Lockerbie, Director of the Edinburgh Book Festival, comments:
‘It is wonderful, given the normally lamentably low rate of translated work available in Britain, that in 2008 we will have more German-speaking authors than ever before. This includes German, Swiss and Austrian writers, and also Serbian and Bulgarian writers now living and working in Germany. It is a hugely heartening development that their work is being made available in the UK and we are overjoyed to welcome them as our guests, and to help introduce them to a new readership.’
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