Giles Radice

AC Grayling ' Irma Kurtz -‘ :' -- Mark Haddon x 2" ,- .‘ ;-::.".;' JanetTodd'W- -‘

Graham Swift "

Elizabeth Jane Howard I

Allan Massie & Nicholas Mosley .' "

Julian Branston ' Imprisoned Writers : : . - . . . . . ' ' Jonathan Clark '. Vanessa Collingridge ' ; *-

Robert Winston : ~

The Writing Business I : '- Tama Janowitz .' " .--- ..- ;. ' " "- r' Katie Hickman. : ~

The Art of Political Journalism

Janice Galloway '-

. . . .. Tim Binding, Gil Courtemanche & Ian Buruma

Frances Fyfield & David Pirie Robert Macfarlane

Ann Thwaite " Spiegelbar ‘. :' .. :. ._

Towards a Second Enlightenment Thursday 14 .: - ... Children's programme :4- - '\ : T" _. :' :v ". ' 2-1: :, Candia McWilliam .- ' - Shena Mackay & Rebecca Smith ' " ' -' " '

NEXT «ISSUE FOUT

Imprisoned Writers

Mario Vargas Llosa '

Katharina Hacker & Sten Nadolny

Andrew O‘Hagan '- _- . T)-

Sontag brings a multifarious body of wo

SUSAN SONTAG

Celebrated chronicler of American life

Every year. those persuasive people at the Edinburgh International Book Festival succeed in pulling off some incredible coups. And if you thought the presence of literary giants Gore Vidal and Margaret Atwood in recent years was impressive. this August‘s programme boasts not one, but three appearances by that least self-promoting of writers and intellectuals. Susan Sontag.

Indeed, a mere trio of events may not be sufficient to scratch the surface of Ms Sontag's vast and multifarious body of work. The original polymath. New York-born Sontag is the author of novels such as The Benefactor and Death Kit, while her numerous short stories include The Way We Live Now, recently anthologised in the Updike-edited Best American Short Stories of the Eighties. Her celebrated non-fiction works include the award winning On Photography and her revelatory collection of critical essays Where the Stress Falls.

And Sontag's talents and passions extend well beyond the confines of parchment and quill. A bold, prolific theatre director and filmmaker, her feature Promised Lands was made in Israel during the October war of 1973, while her production of Beckett‘s Waiting for Godot in war-ravaged Sarajevo led to her being made an honorary citizen of the city. Having consistently combined her art with unflagging work as a human rights campaigner, Sontag was president of PEN, the international organisation promoting freedom of expression in literature, in the late 80$.

Dividing her festival appearances between her fiction, her views on the nature of, and responses to, war (dealt with in her latest book, Regarding the Pain of Others). and a career overview. aficionados and newcomers alike cannot miss these rare opportunities. (Allan Radcliffe)

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Robert Winston'

8‘ ': :"2 ' ii’x: -' "' w Muriel Gray " (7‘0... ,, ,H '. ,7 - The Writing Business' .' ~ :' : : : . . - - 3*." " '- ' ' Barry Miles ° - :'

~ .22: ... ., Jim Perrin * - : '- .- - Stephen Baxter " :-- :' " ~ ' H ' '

The Future of the Foetus with Spiegelbar " «r ’:-'.--'.- .'

THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 19