Worlds Literature Festival 2012

Our Worlds Literature Festival takes place every year towards the end of June. It brings together writers from around the world in a week of events, readings and discussion.

This year the Worlds Literature Festival is taking place from the 18th- 22nd June in venues across Norwich. Writers will be flying in from across the world to enjoy inspiring discussion and debate. There will be some fantastic author events open to the public, including a series of free Afternoon Readings. Jeanette Winterson, Nobel Laureate JM Coetzee and Michael Ondaatje are just a few of the world-renowned authors who will be visiting Norwich and featuring in our Worlds events.

Worlds Literature Festival also coincides with our Summer Reads Program and Refugee Week.

Full details on our Worlds 2012 events are below. Come along and join us for a week of celebrating the best international talent in writing. 

An Evening with Jo Shapcott, Dame Gillian Beer & Jeanette Winterson
Monday 18th June, 7-8.30pm, UEA Drama Studio, £5
Listen to three fascinating writers discuss their work and the relationship between memoir, fiction and the self. Curated by twice Booker Prize judge Gillian Beer, this evening promises to be inspirational and unforgettable. This event is also part of Summer Reads.

An Evening with JM Coetzee, Anna Funder & Tim Parks
Tuesday 19th June, 7.30-9pm, Norwich Playhouse, £12/£10 conc
Tickets are sure to sell out fast for this evening event with Nobel Laureate JM Coetzee, prize-winning author Anna Funder and best-seller Tim Parks. Featuring individual readings from each of the authors, the evening will be a fascinating exploration of fiction and memoir in contemporary writing. This event is also part of Summer Reads.

World Voices Featuring Teju Cole and Vesna Goldsworthy
Wednesday 20th June, 6.30-7.30pm, Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library, £2
In celebration of Refugee Week Teju Cole and Vesna Goldsworthy will read from their work and consider themes of displacement and exile. Teju Cole is a promising new author whose debut novel Open City  won the 2012 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Vesna Goldsworthy’s memoir Chernobyl Strawberries was serialised both in The Times and on the BBC. This event is also part of Summer Reads.

An Evening with Michael Ondaatje and Kamila Shamsie
Thursday 21st June, 7.30, Norwich Playhouse., £12/£10 conc, Multi-buy £20/£15 conc
The acclaimed writer Michael Ondaatje is joined by Kamila Shamsie for an evening of readings and stimulating conversation on the topic of migration, otherness and displacement. This event is in celebration of Refugee Week.

Granta Britain Launch
Friday 22nd June, 7.30pm, UEA Drama Studio, £5
Join us and celebrate the launch of Granta’s Britain issue. This issue of Granta focuses on what it truly means to be British - an apt exploration on the year where Britain not only hosts the Olympics but celebrates the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The launch will be chaired by John Freeman and features Rachel Seiffert, Andrea Stuart and Edmund Clark.

Afternoon Reading: Language & Experiment
Tuesday  19th June, 2-3.30pm, UEA Drama Studio, Free
A  free afternoon reading on the theme of Language and Experiment. Featuring Joe Dunthorne (UK), Alvin Pang (Singapore), Manon Uphoff (Netherlands), Yoko Tawada (Japan) and Valerie Henitiuk from the British Centre for Literary Translation as host.

Afternoon Reading: Truths
Wednesday 20th June, 2-3.30pm, UEA Drama Studio, Free
A free afternoon reading session that explores representations of the real in fiction and poetry. Featuring Eleanor Catton (New Zealand), Goretti Kyomuhendo (Uganda), Frances Leviston (UK), Alex Miller(Australia), Chika Unigwe and hosted by Mitchell Albert of WCN.

Afternoon Reading: Strange Lands
Friday 22nd June, 2-3.30pm, UEA Drama Studio, Free
A free afternoon reading session in which themes of loss, otherness and home are examined. Featuring Jonty Driver (UK), Samantha Harvey (UK), Sjon (Iceland), Catherine Cole (Australia) and hosted by Kate Griffin.

Worlds Literature Salon

As well as our public events for Worlds Literature Festival we also run the Salon, which provides a unique space for writers across the world to meet and talk about thing that matter to them.  

This theme of this years Worlds Salon is 'Fiction, Memoir and the Self'. The events will aim to explore the relationship between biographical truth, fictional representation and the idea of memoir – how the self is presented in fiction and memoir and what this might mean for the writer as an artist and as a public figure; alternative traditions and norms in different literatures and how might the act of translation sit between memoir and fiction.