Gill and Macmillan is among the Irish brigade in Los Angeles this weekend for Book Expo America 1999. Back in LA after its five-year stint in Chicago, around 1,750 exhibitors will be wheeling and dealing and buying and selling rights, before this mega bookfest comes to a close tomorrow night. Seen in the trade as "a more friendly Frankfurt" where the book fraternity congregates each autumn, Expo will predictably concentrate this year on the challenges facing booksellers in the new millennium, but various authors will be on hand as well to sign - and help sell - their new books, including Philip Gourevitch, recently in Dublin to read from his account of genocide in Rwanda, and novelists Michael Cunningham and David Guterson.
At last, the new novel from Roddy Doyle. Fans of Doyle's inimitable portraits of contemporary Dublin who've been dying to see how he fares in the historical novel genre will get their chance in September when Jonathan Cape publishes A Star Called Henry. But with a hero who is in the GPO in 1916, a republican legend whose weapon is his father's wooden leg and whose mode of transport is a bike, it's obvious that the weight of history has not dampened Doyle's sense of fun. It may even have enhanced it. Billed as a subversive look behind the legends of Irish republicanism, those who heard him read from it at last autumn's Great Balloon Fire literary festival in Tullamore report that there were members of the audience ill with laughter by the time he'd finished. Easter Week 1916 may never be the same again.
Literary awards may have increased in recent years but historians have fewer chances to see their work recognised. A new competition under the auspices of the Four Courts Press, looks set to change all that. Called the J.C. Beckett Prize in Irish History, it is named after the author of The Making of Modern Ireland and one-time professor at Queen's University, Belfast.
The idea is that students working in medieval or modern Irish history should submit a 12-15,000 word essay based on their dissertation. An impressive array of judges including Roy Foster and Thomas Bartlett will decide who walks away with the prize of a gold medal, £500 and the possibility of seeing their dissertation published. In addition, the Four Court Press intends to publish an annual volume of the essays called the Beckett Essays in Irish History. For more information contact info@four-courts-press.ie
She'd only come because she was afraid there would be "a small turn-out", one best-selling author confided as she dashed out the door of Waterstones on Dublin's Dawson Street last Tuesday night. She needn't have worried because upstairs what another author described as a most "writerly gathering" was in full swing. The occasion was the launch of Philip Casey's novel The Waterstar. There to speed it on its way were Katie Hayes, with baby Merlin, poet Paul Durcan, Anthony Cronin who came with Anne Haverty (who'd launched her book of poetry the previous week), Pat Boran, Micheal O Siadhail, Gerald Dawe and Trudy Hayes, who had pale pink roses for the launching author.
Doris Lessing, Andre Brink - and Irish writers including Colum McCann, Eavan Boland, and Hugo Hamilton - are among those expected at this year's Edinburgh Book Festival (August 14th-30th). Faith Liddell, announcing a preview list of writers attending, revealed that post-election, devolved Scotland (she hopes) will be central to the event's programming. Scottish and international writers will take part in a series of symposiums considering independence, nationalism and the role of the writer. So far, other confirmed international authors are Annie Proulx (US), Vikram Seth (India), Jay McInerney (US) and Beryl Bainbridge. The major lecture, the Post Office Literary Lecture, will be given by poet Edwin Morgan, who was 79 last Tuesday.
The revelations about the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes continue with the latest news that Ted's second partner, Assia Wevill, was pregnant in the weeks preceding Sylvia Plath's death and that Plath may have known of this (the pregnancy was subsequently aborted). As Hughes's funeral in Devon was private, a memorial service will be held in Westminster Abbey on May 13th at 11 a.m.
Those speaking at the service will include poet Seamus Heaney and old friends of Hughes, including Michael Baldwin, Caroline Tisdall and Lord Gowrie. The musicians performing will be the Tallis Scholars and Alfred Brendel.
Sadbh