The Birmingham Book Festival 2011

6-16 October

www.birminghambookfestival.org

For 13 years, the Birmingham Book Festival has been a place for ideas and conversation, bringing writing to the fore in its capacity to make us question our worlds. This year is no exception: there is much to talk about in 2011, and plenty to interrogate during the ten days of the Festival.

WILL SELF will lead us in an examination of our dependency on the car in an alternative sermon in the city’s beautiful cathedral. TONY HARRISON  will bring his exceptional repertoire of striking verse and the weighty subjects that populate it, to our stage. STUART MACONIE will share his journey through the decades of our recent history in search of the tragic, shameful and glorious ‘days that made Britain’. IAN RANKIN will take us back to 1985 and a  period of political turmoil  with his new novel. OWEN HATHERLEY will chart the architectural wreckage of the ‘age of greed and aspiration’ of the late nineties and early noughties.

IAN LESLIE will explore how deceit is central to who we are and ingrained in our practise of art, advertising, sport, politics and war. Cuban poet VÍCTOR RODRÍGUEZ NÚÑEZ will join us in a rare UK appearance to share poetry that is ‘participatory yet not political, Cuban yet not essentially Nationalist.’ Dutch poets ELLEN DECKWITZ and DAAN DOESBORGH will delight us with their extraordinary blend of humour, rhythm and mime.

There’s more, too.  A festival shop, a festival book (JENN ASHWORTH’S Cold Light, a brilliant second novel), an all night writing workshop with JUDITH ALLNATT (back by popular demand), a Fringe Festival  giving opportunities to meet professionals such as TINDAL STREET PRESS and reporter SONIA FALEIRO and a specially commissioned empty shop sound installation, BOY YOU TURN ME.

Join us as we work our way around the city, inhabiting an array of interesting venues, exploring a profusion of events, workshops and conversations. Enjoy!