Dingle Film Festival

The full programme for the Dingle Film Festival has now been published. THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS is the opening night film, on Thursday September 11. Tickets for the film, which will be shown at 8 pm in the Phoenix Cinema, can be purchased online from the festival website. Sadly I won’t be able to attend this screening as it clashes with the UK premiere in London the same night; I was in Dingle a couple of months ago for a reading in the Dingle bookstore before Listowel Writers Week and it’s a beautiful part of the world.

Dingle Film Festival

In addition to screening out of competition at next month’s San Sebastian film festival in Spain, THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS will be the opening night film at this year’s Dingle Film Festival in County Kerry, Ireland, on Thursday September 11 (the night before it opens nationwide.) Tickets for the gala screening aren’t on sale yet but no doubt will be soon from the festival website.

International Premiere at San Sebastian Film Festival

Following the Irish and UK premieres of THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS in early September, the international premiere will take place at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain, out of competition.

The cast and crew - and me - will be in San Sebastian for the premiere. It’s a very appropriate place to show the film as the novel has sold more than a million copies in Spain since it was published there last year.

The festival website can be seen here.

Variety Magazine also has a report of the upcoming screening here.

Library Voices

Another reading last night, this time in Dun Laoghaire on Dublin’s coastline as part of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council’s programme entitled ‘Library Voices’. I’d never been inside County Hall (left) before although I’ve walked past it a thousand times in my life. A magnificent building and a beautiful room to read in. I read two sections from MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY and despite the fact that I could feel my voice going halfway through the second one (don’t know why) it seemed to go well. A terrific and very responsive audience, full of questions. My favourite part of any reading is always the Q&A with the audience afterwards, it’s the most spontaneous and fun element of these events. Many thanks to Bert Wright for running the show in his typically lively and warm fashion and for conducting the on-stage questions too and to all the librarians who have worked so hard to ensure that the programme of readings are successful.

Most of the readings in this series have already happened (Jodi Picoult, Joe O’Connor, Hugo Hamilton) but there’s another one coming up next week (Cathy Kelly) The website is here if you’re interested in getting some tickets.

Dublin Writers Festival … Part 2

Another trip into the Project last night, this time to hear Jonathan Coe and Sebastian Barry speak about their latest novels. I’ve been a huge fan of Jonathan Coe for many years; his novels are always witty and inventive but they’re incredibly complex too and you have to pay attention to every line or you’ll miss something that’s going to be hugely important later on. WHAT A CARVE UP! is easily one of my top 10 novels of all time and THE RAIN BEFORE IT FALLS is a very sensitive and tender story, told through the voice of a dying woman whose decency and humanity shine from the page. As does the voice of the elderly narrator in Sebastian Barry’s THE SECRET SCRIPTURE, which I mentioned in my reading round-up a couple of months ago. It’s one of the best of ‘08 so far. Barry’s reading is almost a performance in itself; he inhabits the characters and brings them fully to life. It was another excellent pairing in this festival.

Dublin Writers Festival

I spent last night at the Project Theatre in Dublin where I read with New Zealand writer Lloyd Jones as part of the opening night of this year’s Dublin Writers Festival. The festival, which runs until Sunday night, has an excellent programme, pairing Irish writers with visiting writers from abroad. Last night’s reading, which was chaired by fellow novelist Claire Kilroy (that’s the 3 of us in the picture on the left) was a lively affair. Lloyd’s most recent novel, MISTER PIP, has been rightly celebrated around the world and we got into an interesting discussion on the role of Charles Dickens in our work. The fact that both our novels are for the most part set in the South Seas adds a further dimension to connect the books. I very much enjoyed hearing him read from his book. I read THE BOOK OF FAME recently too, which includes scenes set in Dublin’s Landsdowne Road rugby pitch. All of Lloyd’s books are steadily being brought into print on these islands - and a good thing too. I’m hoping to attend some of the other events in the festival over the next couple of days.

Listowel Writers Week

I spent Friday - Sunday in Listowel, Co Kerry, at the annual Writers Week literary festival. Before arriving, I stopped off in Dingle, at the Dingle Bookstore, where I gave a reading from MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY to customers of this excellent local bookshop and was made feel very welcome. Many thanks to Camilla for inviting me (and for offering me a free book from the shelves afterwards!)

I drive to Listowel in time for the Amnesty event, which was being run in conjunction with the short stories being published every Saturday in the Irish Times. Four of the writers involved gave readings - Lia Mills, Carlo Gebler, Kevin Barry and myself - and afterwards there was what could only be called a very lively Q&A session with those attending on the subject of the writer’s role in relation to continuing human rights abuses around the world. The night ended, as so many of these events do, with a great gang talking into the night in the bar - great fun.

I attended John Banville’s reading on Saturday, a great treat as he read from a work-in-progress. Then on Sunday I read from MUTINY to an audience who, happily, were full of questions about that novel and not the previous one!

This was my first time at Listowel Writers Week and I enjoyed every minute of it thoroughly. A warm atmosphere in the hotel, a very professionally run festival, interesting writers and great audiences made up a terrific few days in Kerry.

Hay-on-Wye: Day 2

Day 2 at Hay… still pouring rain. Somehow, despite the weather, it’s enormous fun being here. Everyone is soaked together and rather than complaining, everyone is just getting on with things. Very sensible. The best place to be, however, is the special tent reserved for authors and editors etc, where one can sit around on comfortable sofas, drinking tea and chatting to friends. All the writers pass through at different times and I was fortunate to meet and chat with one of my favourite writers, Tim Winton, as well as briefly say hello to Lloyd Jones, who was on his way to Dublin for the writers festival here in June, where we’ll be reading together.

Monday afternoon I read from MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY to a very friendly audience and engaged in a discussion about the book on stage with Paul Blezard. Having spent 2 years reading passaged from PYJAMAS, it’s refreshing to read from this new novel, although I must still improve on catching the rhythms and tone of the piece as I read it. Afterwards, I made the signing tent (this time) and it was great to meet many readers who wanted their books signed.

Then that was it! Out of Hay for another year. And despite the weather it was a terrific few days. I’ll look forward to returning another time.

Hay-on-Wye: Day 1

The last few days were spent at the Guardian Hay Literary Festival in Wales, my second time to partake in the festival. My memories of last time - 2006 - are of sunny days and people sitting out in deckchairs in shorts, drinking beer on the grass, reading books… this year it was quite different, raining from the time I arrived until the moment I left. And not just rain either. It was biblical. “Do you think it’s the end of the world?” I heard someone say in what sounded like a serious tone.

I attended several of the talks at the festival and particularly enjoyed hearing Jhumpa Lahiri discuss her work. She’s a wonderful writer and I’m reading her latest collection of stories at the moment. More on that anon.

On Sunday, a group of people from Disney and Miramax arrived at the festival, and we showed the opening 15 minutes of THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PYJAMAS film to a sell-out audience, along with a later scene between Bruno, Shmuel and Lt Kotler. Afterwards, producer David Heyman, co-producer Rosie Alison, director Mark Herman and I went on stage to be interviewed by Claire Armistead from the Guardian newspaper and then we took questions from the audience. The screening seemed to go very well and the reactions from the audience were hugely enthusiastic.

Afterwards, I went to the Guardian ‘House of Hay’ hut to be interviewed with Mark for a podcast and missed the signing session that I didn’t realise I was supposed to be doing, thus disappointing all those who were waiting in line to get their books signed. If you were one of these - sorry.

Dublin Writers Festival ‘08

I was in the Merrion Hotel last night for the launch of this year’s Dublin Writers Festival, which runs from 11-15 June.

An excellent programme has been planned by Liam Browne. The decision to team Irish writers with foreign writers will make for some interesting events - Glenn Patterson will be reading with Canadian writer Wayne Johnston, Hugo Hamilton with Justin Cartwright, Sebastian Barry with Jonathan Coe, Anne Enright with Tobias Wolff and I’ll be reading with New Zealand novelist Lloyd Jones, which I’m very much looking forward to as I was a huge fan of ‘Mr Pip’.

The full programme and tickets for the festival can be purchased on the festival website.