Loose Leaves: Writer Liam Browne whose first novel, The Emigrant's Farewell, had an enthusiastic reception when published by Bloomsbury earlier this year, is the new programme director of the Dublin Writers Festival.
Currently working with the Brighton Festival as books and debate programmer, he will continue organising the literature programme there as he starts putting together the 2007 line-up for the Dublin festival, which will take place next June.
Though to readers Browne is now mainly associated with The Emigrant's Farewell, he has much experience of literary event management, starting with Impac in 1992, a year-long arts festival in his native Derry. For three years he was literature co-ordinator at the Royal Festival Hall in London's South Bank Centre.
Reviewing The Emigrant's Farewell in these pages, Patricia Craig identified certain striking things about it: a deep-rooted concern with the nitty-gritty of Derry life, and, most auspiciously, she felt, the absence from its pages of any political or sectarian imperative. "This is a post-terrorist novel that augurs well for the future." It will be interesting to watch his first Dublin festival come to life.
Trinity treat for Markham
This year's British Council International Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin is the poet, novelist and short story writer EA Markham. Born on the Caribbean island of Montserrat in 1939, Markham has lived in Britain since 1956. His poetry collections include Human Rites: Selected Poems 1970-1982 (1984), Living in Disguise (1986), Towards the End of a Century (1989), Misapprehensions (1995) and A Rough Climate (2002), the last of which was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. He spent three years in Northern Ireland towards the end of the 1980s at the University of Ulster, and says of his new appointment that one of its advantages will be re-reading great Irish literary classics and investigating what is on offer here today, particularly in theatre. Next Thursday he will give a reading at 7.30pm in the Uí Chadhain Theatre in the Arts Building at Trinity College. Admission is free.
Right man for Abu Ghraib job
Hardly a day goes by without a new tome hitting the bookshops about the war in Iraq, Muslim fundamentalism, the fall-out from the presidency of George W Bush and the state of a world in the grip of fear. It must be hard for readers to decide which ones will help them figure out what's really going on. And so, the news that New Yorker investigative writer Philip Gourevitch has taken on the subject of Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison is most welcome. Gourevitch, whose parents and grandparents were refugees to the US from the Holocaust, is the author of the searing portrait of the legacy of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, published in 1998, for which he made numerous trips to Rwanda interviewing survivors of the atrocities there.
Gourevitch is writing the Abu Ghraib book with Errol Morris, who is making a film about the prison. Picador will publish the book to coincide with the film release next autumn.
Debut novelists to give tips
Irish Times journalist and novelist Kate Holmquist, who is already hard at work on her second novel, and comic Anne Gildea, now also a novelist, will read from their recently published books on Thursday, November 9th at 8pm in the United Arts Club at 3 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin 2. Holmquist, who has been a feature writer with this paper since 1984, is also the author of a memoir about coming to terms with her mother's death from cancer, A Good Daughter (Raven Arts Press). Between that and her first novel, The Glass Room (Penguin Ireland, 2006), which jumped into the bestseller list shortly after publication, she has a wealth of writing experience. She will be talking about her writing at the event, as will Gildea. Best known as a co-founder, writer and performer with The Nualas, Gildea toured internationally with the musical comedy trio before they disbanded in 2001. She also co-wrote and performed two radio series and a one-off piece for BBC Radio 4. Deadlines and D**kheads (O'Brien Press, 2006) is her first novel. Booking is essential, and can be made at irishpen@ireland.com.