Posts tagged birmingham book festival
Too Asian, Not Asian Enough: The New Anthology from Tindal Street Press
9 months ago
Friday 7th October
6.00 (for a 6.30pm start) – 7.30pm/ Free
Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square,
Brindleyplace, Birmingham, B1 2HS
‘For too long we’ve been expected to reproduce the formulas of British Asian fiction while anything else we write is considered too Asian or not Asian enough. We reject the British Asian label and demand the freedom to be writers rather than a marketing category.’ – editor, Kavita Bhanot
For this Tindal Street Press launch Kavita will be joined by three of the exciting new writers in Too Asian, Not Asian Enough – Bobby Nayyar, Rohan Kar and Dimmi Khan – who will be reading from their stories and discussing the motivations behind this thrilling collection of up-and-coming British Asian talent.
Presented in Partnership with Tindal Street Press
Tickets: free, but please book to avoid disappointment
Book online or call the Box Office (via MAC)
on 0121 446 3232
Ian Leslie: Born Liars
9 months ago
Friday 7th October
8pm – 9.15pm/ £7 (£5 concessions)
Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, Birmingham, B1 2HS
Our attitudes to lying are confused and contradictory – you might even say, self-deceiving. On the one hand we hate lies, and liars. On the other, we all indulge in fibs, tall tales and fantasies. If lying is wrong, why do we all do it, both to others, and to ourselves?
In Born Liars, Ian Leslie argues that, far from being a bug in the human software, lying is central to who we are; that we cannot understand ourselves without first understanding the dynamics of deceit. Using a vivid, panoramic style, he explores the role of deception and self-deception in our childhoods, our careers, and our health, and the part played by lies – both black and white – in art, advertising, sport, politics and war. Drawing on thinkers as varied as Augustine, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Ian McEwan and Marlon Brando, he takes the reader on an exhilarating tour of ideas that brings the latest news about deception back from the frontiers of evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy.
Join Ian Leslie as he presents Born Liars. This event includes a book signing, copies of the book will be on sale.
Presented in partnership with the RSA
Tickets: £7 (£5 concessionary price)
Book Online or through our Box Office (via the MAC)
on 0121 446 3232
Slam! Young People Set the Mic Alight!
9 months ago
Saturday 8th October
4pm – 5pm/ Free
Library Theatre, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ
Young poets who are involved with RoguePlay’s regular Rhymes night mentor young writers from the West Midlands to battle it out in a poetry slam.
With Becki Head, Kesha Campbell and Jordan Westcarr. The afternoon will be compared by former Birmingham Young Poet Laureate Matt Windle.
Rhymes is a regular performance poetry/spoken word event that hosts established and upcoming local talent. We’ve teamed up with them to link up some of their best young poets with regional young writers who are keen to hone their slamming skills. Throughout the afternoon our poets will mentor the budding slammers as well as performing their own sets, culminating in a performance and slam where the public can vote for their favourite team.
Tickets: Free but please reserve your place through our Box Office
Book online or call the Box Office (via MAC)
on 0121 446 3232
Sparkbrook Pride: Launching a new collection from Pogus Caesar
9 months ago
Monday 10th October
6.30pm – 8pm/ Free
MADE (Midlands Architecture and the Designed Environment),
7 Newhall Square, Birmingham,
B3 1RU
Sparkbrook Pride consists of 70 black and white photographs of residents of Sparkbrook, Birmingham – where Pogus grew up – all taken with his trademark Canon Sureshot camera. Documenting the diverse individuals who live and work in the area, the book features both the long-standing residents from the West Indies, Ireland, India and Pakistan and the more recent additions to the community from Somalia, Sudan, Malawi and Afghanistan, celebrating the rich cultural mix that defines the area.
The book’s foreword is written by award winning poet, novelist and playwright Benjamin Zephaniah. Zephaniah says “I love the ‘rawness’ of these photos, they have a sense of place, yet nothing is staged, and the only information Pogus gives us about those featured is how they define themselves, nothing more. We need no more. So people – it is down to us to piece together the rest of this multicultural puzzle”.
Pogus Caesar is one of the country’s leading social documentary photographers. He has recorded key moments in Birmingham’s recent history including the Bullring regeneration, Birmingham tornado and the Handsworth riots. According to Caesar “Simplicity is best when working with diverse communities; I prefer to photograph the changing world as it unfolds around me”.
Specially commissioned by Be Birmingham and published by OOM Gallery and Punch
Tickets: Free, but please book to avoid disappointment
Book online or by calling the Box Office (via MAC)
on 0121 446 3232
Developing Writers with the BBC- with Paul Ashton
9 months ago
Monday 10th October
6pm – 7.30pm/ £7 (£5)
Library Theatre, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ
How do scriptwriters get themselves noticed? How do they then get themselves developed and commissioned? And how do things really work at the BBC for new, emerging and even experienced writers?
Demystifying the process will be Paul Ashton, Development Producer at BBC Writersroom whose job it is to find and nurture writers for BBC drama, comedy and children’s programmes. He recently published The Calling Card Script, a book designed for anyone wanting to write an original script that speaks their voice and gets them noticed.
Presented in Partnership with the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain
Tickets: £7/ £5 concessionary price. Writers’ Guild Member: £4
Book online or through our Box Office (via MAC)
on 0121 446 3232
W.G Sebald: Beyond Literature with Uwe Schutte & Jo Catling
9 months ago
Monday 10th October
8pm – 9.15pm/ £6 (£4)
Library Theatre, Chamberlain Square,
Birmingham, B3 3HQ
In the course of just a few years W.G. Sebald established an international reputation for himself as one of the most renowned writers of the late 20th century. This year marks the tenth anniversary of his premature death in December 2001. In Beyond Literature, Jo Catling and Uwe Schütte will examine aspects of his life and works that are hardly known: his role as an academic in the UK, his critical writings, his reception as a writer in Germany, and so on.
Jo Catling is a former colleague of Sebald at the University of East Anglia, translator of his critical writings and co-editor of Saturn’s Moons: A WG Sebald Handbook (2011) which was also co-edited by Richard Hibbitt.
Uwe Schütte is a former PhD student of Sebald and Reader in German at Aston University
Tickets: £6/ £4 concessionary price
Book Onlineor call the Box Office (via MAC)
on 0121 446 3232
The Complete Works: British Asian writers
9 months ago
Tuesday 11th October
7pm – 8.15pm/ £6 (£4)
Hexagon Theatre, MAC, Cannon Hill Park,
2 Russell Road, Birmingham, B12 9HQ
Consider this mixtape of offerings from the sharpest Asian male novelists in the country.
Niven Govinden, Nikesh Shukla, Irfan Master and Sunjeev Sahota read from their books, taking in love, urban decay, hip hop, nerdiness, the beauty of friendship, zipping between cities, universes and the Diaspora.
Niven Govinden’s novel Graffiti My Soul is his second. His first was We Are The New Romantics.
Nikesh Shukla is a resident poet for the BBC Asian Network. His novel, Coconut Unlimited is his first.
Irfan Master’s book for young adults, A Beautiful Lie was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Childrens Book Award 2011.
Sunjeev Sahota’s first novel Ours Are The Streets, won him a mention in The Observer’s Debutantes to Watch 2011.
Hosted by Nikesh Shukla.
All of the novels featured here will be for sale at the event and in our Festival Bookshop which is located in the Library Foyer, Central Library, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ.
Tickets: £6/ £4 concessionary price.
Special Offer: Book tickets to this and What Are They Whispering and receive a £2 discount
Book online or call the Box Office (via MAC)
on 0121 446 3232
What Are They Whispering?: A poetry Performance
9 months ago
Tuesday 11th October
8.30pm – 9.45pm/ £9 (£6)
Foyle Studio, MAC,
Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, B12 9QH
Power. Who has it, who wants it, who tries to take it from you? The poets know. What Are They Whispering? is a poetry show to nudge you or urge you to weigh up the balance of power in your own life. Imtiaz Dharker, Joe Dunthorne and John Stammers perform their poems about power in both its rawest and most subtle states. Poems and ideas are enhanced and amplified with projections, lighting and sound; every spoken word special effect from a whisper to a chorus, every lighting state from a firefly glimmer to a thunderbolt.
Imtiaz Dharker calls herself a Scottish Muslim Calvinist, brought up in a Lahori household in Glasgow, working in Bombay. She is a poet, artist and documentary film-maker and her books include Purdah, Postcards from God, I Speak for the Devil, and Leaving Fingerprints.
Joe Dunthorne was born and brought up in Swansea. His debut novel, Submarine, published by Hamish Hamilton, won the Curtis Brown Prize. It has been translated in to nine languages and in 2011, it was made into a film directed by Richard Ayoade and produced by Ben Stiller. His poetry has been published in Poetry Review, New Welsh Review and Voice Recognition.
John Stammers’ first collection, Panoramic Lounge-Bar, was awarded the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2001 and shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Award 2001. His second collection, Stolen Love Behaviour, was a Poetry Book Society Choice.
www.whataretheywhispering.wordpress.com
Books from all three of the performers will be on sale during this event and they will also be available at the Festival Bookshop located in the Library Foyer, Central Library, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ. The Festival Bookshop is open for the duration of the Birmingham Book Festival 2011.
Presented in partnership with MAC
Tickets: £9/ £6 concessionary price.
Special Offer: Book tickets to this and The Complete Works: British Asian Writers and receive a £2 discount
Book online or by calling the Box Office (via MAC)
on 0121 446 3232
Birmingham Libraries present: An Evening with Ian Rankin
9 months ago
Wednesday 12th October
6.30pm (for a 7pm start)- 8.15pm/ Free
Library Theatre, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ
This event has unfortunately sold out, if you would like to be added to a waiting list please email joanne[at]birminghambookfestival.org
Ian Rankin is the UK’s number one best-selling crime writer. He will be talking about his work and in particular his new book, The Impossible Dead.
Malcolm Fox and his team from Internal Affairs have been sent to Fife to investigate whether fellow cops covered up for a corrupt colleague, Detective Paul Carter. But what should be a simple job is soon complicated by intimations of conspiracy and cover-up- and a brutal murder, a murder committed with a weapon that should not even exist. The spiralling investigation takes Fox back in time to 1985, a year of turmoil in British political life. Terrorists intent on a split between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom were becoming more brazen and ruthless, sending letter-bombs and poisonous spores to government offices, plotting kidnaps and murder, and trying to stay one step ahead of the spies sent to flush them out.
Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, Ian won America’s Edgar Award for Resurrection Men. He has also been shortlisted for the Anthony Awards in the USA and won Denmark’s Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipries.
Tickets: Free but please book to avoid disappointment.
Book online or by calling the Box Office (via MAC)
on 0121 446 3232
Víctor Rodríguez Núñez : The Infinite’s Ash
9 months ago
Wednesday 12th October
7.30pm – 9pm/ £7 (£5)
Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square,
Brindleyplace, Birmingham, B1 2HS
Víctor Rodríguez Núñez is one of the most renowned Cuban poets writing today. He has published eleven poetry collections, the most recent of which, The Infinite’s Ash, has been translated into English by Katherine Hedeen.
He has described his poetry as ‘participatory, yet not political, communicative, yet not explicit, dialogic yet not conversational, Cuban yet not essentially nationalist.’
His awards include the David Prize (Cuba, 1980), the Plural Prize (Mexico, 1983), the EDUCA Prize (Costa Rica, 1995), the Renacimiento Prize (Spain, 2000), the Fray Luis de León Prize (Spain, 2005) and the Leonor Prize (Spain, 2006). His poems have appeared in literary journals throughout the world. He is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, Ohio. USA.
This is a rare opportunity to experience Rodríguez Núñez’s poetry in Spanish and English, followed by a discussion of his work in conversation with Birmingham poet Charlie Jordan and a book signing. The Infinite’s Ash will be on sale at this event and also in the Festival Bookshop which is located in the Library Foyer throughout the Birmingham Book Festival 2011.
Tickets: £7/ £5 concessionary price
Book online or by calling the Box Office (via the MAC)
on 0121 446 3232
