Arts Council Literary Tent (MindField Arena) - a feast of words and music
Well, whom do we have this year: three Booker Prize winners; a pair of noir fiction writers; the creator of the world’s finest teenage criminal mastermind; Ireland’s most popular radio host; the original ‘punk poet’ and ‘Bard of Salford’; the promoter of arguably the world’s most famous festival; and The Clash’s former road manager, will all be joining forces with some of Ireland’s best-acclaimed writers at this year’s Arts Council Literary Tent at the Picnic.
John Banville, winner of the Man Booker prize for his novel The Sea - and a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize - will be joined by RTÉ’s Joe Duffy for an hour-long ‘talk to Joe’. Fellow ‘Bookered’ novelists Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright will be reading from their work also, as will Claire Kilroy, Keith Ridgway, Kathleen MacMahon and Suzy Joinson, all of whom have new novels out captivating readers world-wide.
Salford’s John Cooper Clarke, cigarette-thin and Empire State-tall, will transfix everyone with renditions of his best-loved poems, among them such classics as Beasley Street and Evidently Chickentown.
Eoin Colfer, creator of the immensely popular Artemis Fowl series of books and habitué of The New York Times bestsellers’ list will also be with us, whilst crime writer, Declan Burke, will be joined by the man whose lyrics feature in his latest novel: Ken Griffin, formerly of Rollerskate Skinny, and one of Ireland’s truly great and inspirational songwriters.
Michael Lang, the original Woodstock promoter and author of The Road to Woodstock, will be joined by Johnny Green, former tour manager with The Clash, and memoirist of the anarchic caper that is A Riot of our Own.
Presiding over the weekend’s events will be Edel Coffey, arts correspondent for The Irish Independent and a regular contributor to RTÉ Radio 1's arts programme, Arena.
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