Big names announced for Heinrich Böll weekend

The 11th annual Heinrich Böll memorial weekend takes place on Achill Island from Friday, May 2nd to Sunday, May 4th 2014 and will be formally opened by Derek Scally, Berlin correspondent of The Irish Times.

The weekend will focus on travel writing and includes a talk by Dea Birkett, Women travellers through the ages - difficult journeys by extraordinary women, which will look at the works of travel writer and novelist Honor Tracy, who lived for many years in Achill. Birkett is an award-winning writer and journalist, whose books include Serpent in Paradise, about her time on Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific.

Hugo Hamilton will read from h is new novel Every Single Minute, which is set in Berlin, and discuss it with Derek Scally. Also appearing are German novelist Birgit Vanderbeke, author of The Mussel Feast. Jamie Bulloch’s English translation of her debut novel was published by Peirene Press last year and has been longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction prize 2014. She currently features in the Brought to Book series on the irishtimes.com books section.

Travel writer Mary Russell will deliver a creative writing seminar and Dr Gisela Holfter from the Univrsity of Limerick will give a lecture on German writers travelling in Ireland in the 20th century: Not only Böll. 20th century travel literature on Ireland from a German perspective. She will also formally open an exhibition archival photograph material Heinrich Böll and family from the Böll family collection, and landscape painting, Paintings of Achill Island by Alex McKenna, at Western Light Art Gallery, Keel.

Rene Böll will give an illustrated talk, Heinrich Böll and his family’s fight for humanity. Heinrich Böll and his family were independent in their thinking; they did not belong to the right or the left. Because of this, Böll could speak about liberty for persecuted people, in Russia and in Chile, at the same time.

Guided walks in the landscape will be led by Eoin Halpin, with a talk by Rev Patrick Comeford, focusing on The Achill missionary buildings at Mweelin.

For more details, visit heinrichboellcottage.com