THE Palestinian writer Nayrouz Qarmout will appear at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, tomorrow, on Thursday 23 August.
Qarmout's UK visa, from the Home Office, was not granted in time for her to come to Edinburgh for her scheduled event on Wednesday 15 August.
She has now received her visa and is travelling to Edinburgh.
Ms Qarmout will be joined on stage by Taiwanese journalist Hsiao-Hung Pai and Brazilian writer Djamila Ribeiro to "celebrate people whose suffering often goes unnoticed and writers whose voices struggle to be heard."
She will draw on her experiences of growing up in a Syrian refugee camp.
The Gaza-based writer will reads from her forthcoming collection The Sea Cloak and discusses life in Gaza City.
Nick Barley, Director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, said: "The plight of Nayrouz and the other authors who have struggled to get visas to come to the UK has struck a chord with writers across the world.
"That she is now able to speak about her work in Edinburgh represents a victory for free speech, and the right for international voices to be heard at our Festival."
The discussion will be chaired by novelist Kamila Shamsie.
www.edbookfest.co.uk
BLUES musicians including the Texas-born singer and guitarist Hamilton Loomis will play a concert in Darvel, east Ayrshire, on Saturday night.
Loomis, whose eighth album was released last year, will be making a return trip to the town.
The bill also includes Mike Vernon and The Mighty Combo, and Lights out by Nine.
Loomis, who offers a live set of blues, funk and soul, was a protégé of Bo Diddley, who once described him as his natural successor.
Mike Vernon has in his time produced albums for, amongst others, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers (with Eric Clapton, Peter Green and Mick Taylor), David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, Level 42, Climax Blues Band and many more.
He is best known as the founder of the blues record label Blue Horizon, whose artists have included Rory Gallagher, Paul Kossoff, Christine McVie and Peter Green. His debut album has just been released.
The Scottish east-coast band Lights out by Nine has in the past supported such acts as Paul Carrack and the Hamish Stuart Band in Darvel.
The concert organisers, Darvel Music Company, is a not-for-profit community organisation.
www.darvelmusiccompany.com/shop
THE author Ali Smith has spoken about the relationship between novels and politics at her event with First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
She said that politics cannot be forced into a story, but that novels are "societal".
On forcing politics into a story, she said: "The story will just die a death; it’ll just be dead on the floor.
"You can’t take an agenda to a story.
"But any story will be political. Everything we do and everything we don’t do is political; we think it isn’t, but it is, because of the ‘polity’, because of the people."
She added: "The thing about the novel that I trust is that the novel is societal.
"The novel, particularly in English, has been a societal form. And it will tell us where we are; it will simply tell us by the story it tells. "A novel that is avoiding, as such, politics is just as political as a novel that addresses more squarely something you could call ‘small p’ politics."
In another event, Smith told the audience, she had been at the National Library of Scotland looking through the Muriel Spark Archive. "Muriel Spark will never die," she said.
"She is alive. That is the thing about Spark. Her books are coming into their time as we read them, and they will be forever coming into their time; that for me is the most astonishing thing."
www.edbookfest.co.uk
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