About the Belfast Book Festival
A very warm welcome to the Belfast Book Festival.
In a Festival that now offers some 40 events, the organisers have tried as much as possible to appeal to a wide range of readers and writers across Belfast. There are established authors such as John Banville, Maurice Leitch, and David Peace; local authors with new works, Jo Baker and Lucy Caldwell; performers such as Larry Lamb and Owen O’Neill; poets like Martin Mooney, Leontia Flynn and Ben Maeir.
There’ll also be events based on The Belfast Blitz: The People’s Story with readings from a new book of eye-witness accounts, the first live performance of W.R. Rodger’s The Return Room, as well as an exhibition of photography books based on the Belfast Exposed archive.
Beyond that there are slams and performances by the poetry collective Lung Soup, named after Andrew Elliot’s last book. There’ll be a reenactment of Swift’s Battle of the Books, talks, and a wide ranging outreach programme involving children and the creative writing classes at the Crescent. We will also be celebrating Blackstaff Press’s 40 birthday by getting a whole wrangle of writers into the same room and having a cake. Help yourself to a slice of what makes Belfast such a vital city!
Paul Muldoon
Belfast has long been famous as a city of readers and writers and the Belfast Book Festival perfectly captures the moods of invention and reflection and fun which only a book can excite. The Arts Council is delighted to support this Festival – reading is still a private and intimate joy, but when it goes ‘live’, on song, outdoors or on stage, this is where public funding rightly comes into its own.
Damian Smyth
Head of Literature and Drama, Arts Council of Northern Ireland