Media release
FACLAN HEBRIDEAN BOOK FESTIVAL LINE-UP ANNOUNCED
ONE OF Britain’s most remotely-situated book festivals, Faclan has announced its 2016 programme.
The Hebridean Book Festival, Feis Litreachas Innse Gall, has confirmed some of the countries leading writers, thinkers and commentators are to appear alongside a host of high-profile authors who are based in the Outer Hebrides.
The full programme of events, talks and discussions will run from Wednesday 2nd – Saturday 5th November 2016 and will be the sixth edition of the festival taking place at Stornoway’s centre for the arts, An Lanntair.
This year, in celebration of the power of the sea that surrounds the islands of extreme North West of Scotland, the theme of the festival is North Atlantic, Cuan Siar.
A film programme will run alongside the literary extravaganza.
Scots Makar, Jackie Kay, is making her first visit to the Hebrides as part of her bid to travel all around Scotland as the new national poet. She will appear in both Stornoway (An Lanntair) and North Uist (Taigh Chearsabhagh) reading from her poetry collections.
The Faclan programme includes:
* Madeleine Bunting launches Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey. This new book by the award-winning former Guardian writer builds on her fascination with the outer reaches of Scotland and explores Hebridean history and culture. A deeply personal voyage of discovery, it shows how a collection of islands on the fringes of Britain helped shape our nation, and how that nation imposed its will on the islands.
* Amy Liptrot has received widespread critical acclaim for her memoir of addiction The Outrun. The book tells the story of how, after more than a decade in London, and unable to control her drinking, Liptrot returned to the Orkney sheep farm where she grew up.
* Artist Marion Coutts won The Welcome Book Prize in 2015 for her deeply moving memoir, The Iceberg, which was a response to the diagnosis, illness and death of her husband, the art critic, Tom Lubbock, died of a brain tumour in January 2011.
* New York-based graphic artist Nick Abadzis won countless awards for his 2008 graphic novel Laika. He currently writes Titan Comics’ ongoing monthly series, Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor. Several collections are now published with more to follow.
* Philip Hoare’s Samuel Johnson Prize-winning book, Leviathan, or the whale, is an investigation into the dark shadowy creatures lurking in the depths of our seas which retain a perennial fascination to humankind.
* Skye-based ‘Young British Artist’, Julie Brook, leads a late-night discussion with Philip Hoare. Brook’s work featured in a major BBC4 documentary earlier this year, Forest, Field And Sky: Art Out Of Nature, in which presenter, Dr James Fox witnessed Brook making a huge flaming beacon in the middle of a sea loch in the outer Hebrides, highlighting the dynamic force of the sea.
Lewis-based writers Kevin MacNeil and Ian Stephen will join the line-up alongside fellow islander, writer and musician, Peter Urpeth.
Urpeth will unveil a brand new live music commission to accompany a screening of the seminal silent documentary film, Nanook of the North (1922). Urpeth’s aunt, Constance Urpeth, was a performer in cinemas throughout London during the heyday of the silent movie era.
Faclan’s closing event is a special live event featuring Akutagawa, a new collaboration between novelist, Kevin MaNeil and close friends, Lewis-based musicians Willie Campbell (Astrid) and Colin The Boy Who Trapped the Sun Macleod. The trio released an EP earlier this year.
An Lanntair’s Head of Visual Arts and Literature, Roddy Murray said: “The programme this year is rich, intense and varied and channels themes of vastness, resilience and isolation.”
Jackie Kay, Scotland’s Makar, will appear in North Uist and at An Lanntair. She said; “I am enormously excited to be coming to the Faclan Festival, and to be in a part of the world I have always wanted to visit.”
Faclan was founded in 2006 and takes place during the Celtic festival of Samhain.
The full line-up and tickets are now available at www.facalan.org
-ENDS-
To request an interview with participating writers or to receive images, please contact: Kathryn Lamont Smith at An Lanntair
kathryn@lanntair.com 01851 708480
To book tickets please visit www.faclan.org or call the An Lanntair Box Office on 01851 708480
Website: www.faclan.org
Twitter @anlanntair
Facebook www.facebook.com/anlanntair
Notes to editor:
About Faclan:
• 2016 will see the 6th year of Faclan in its current format.
• Faclan 2016 will host The Royal Literary Fund Lecture, which will be delivered by Kevin MacNeil.
• Faclan has previously welcomed authors such as Richard Dawkins, Jon Ronson and Jonathan Meades.
• Faclan is curated each year by An Lanntair’s Head of Visual Arts and Literature Roddy Murray.
About An Lanntair:
• An Lanntair is a multi-disciplinary Arts Centre in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in The Outer Hebrides.
• An Lanntair is a registered charity – SC003287
• For more information visit www.lanntair.com or email Head of Marketing Kathryn Lamont Smith at Kathryn@lanntair.com