The Gibunco Gibraltar Internationl Literary Festival

Page 1

THE

GIBRALTAR INTERNATIONAL LITERARY FESTIVAL

THE GIBUNCO GIBRALTAR INTERNATIONAL LITERARY FESTIVAL FRIDAY 25th TO SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER 2013

Speakers include: Ben Okri • Ken Hom • Peter Snow • Joanne Harris • Madhur Jaffrey • Kate Adie • D.J. Taylor • Claudia Roden Sir John Holmes • Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor • Saira Shah • Hardeep Singh Kohli • Professor Sir Paul Mellars Kevin Crossley-Holland • Professor Paul Preston • Professor Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch • Tahir Shah • Robin Hanbury-Tenison Mohammed Achaari • Gavin Hewitt • Roma Tearne • Professor Norman Stone • Professor David Crystal • Professor Clive Finlayson Mary Chiappe • Levi Attias • Dr Joseph Garcia • Nhean Haynes de Domecq • Dr Jennifer Ballantine Perera • Sam Benady Dr Mercedes Aguirre • Victor José Maicas Safont • Carmen Cordero Amores • Fernando Pérez Sanjuán

www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

The Festival is organised by HM Government of Gibraltar


The Garrison Library, Gibraltar 1870


Director’s welcome Sally Dunsmore, Festival Director

I was deeply honoured last year to be invited by HM Government of Gibraltar to put together the first Gibraltar International Literary Festival which has been so generously sponsored by The Gibunco Group supported by an impressive list of Gibraltar and UK companies.

Gibraltar has had an extraordinary history, which today is reflected in this unique city state’s diverse cultural, ethnic and religious traditions. I have sought to reflect these rich influences in the festival programme, as over the centuries they have forged the people of this small but passionately proud nation.

I am delighted that so many speakers are coming from Morocco and Spain to join the many distinguished novelists, poets, historians, biographers, journalists, cookery writers and public figures from all over the world.

I am particularly pleased that three new books will be launched at the festival by Gibraltar writers. We have a strong contingent of speakers from the Rock, together with three British novelists who have used Gibraltar as the backdrop for their latest works.

It is highly appropriate that the festival will be centered around the beautiful and historic Garrison Library which will accommodate many events as well as the festival green room and the festival bookshop. Other city centre heritage venues will also be used, all within walking distance. We are particularly grateful to His Excellency, The Governor, for allowing us to stage so many events at his official residence, The Convent.

We are delighted that large numbers of school pupils and young people will be able to enjoy the festival and look forward to welcoming the residents of Gibraltar and many visitors to a memorable festival weekend.

The festival team have received every assistance from many departments of HM Government in the complex planning and organisation of the festival and from numerous Gibraltar organisations and institutions. Thank you all.

1


2

The Defeat of the Spanish Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782 The Governor, General George Augustus Eliott, directing the rescue of Spanish sailors by the British John Singleton Copley (1783) The Guildhall Art Gallery, London


The Honourable Fabian Picardo MP Chief Minister and Minister for Finance

Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar is delighted to welcome so many distinguished novelists, historians, writers and public figures to the Rock – for the first Gibunco Gibraltar International Literary Festival. Gibraltar stands at the crossroads between the cultures and civilisations of Africa and Europe – the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. This remarkable blend of traditions is reflected in the brilliant programme of speakers which Sally Dunsmore has devised for the three-day festival – with eminent figures flying in from all over the world, together with a strong contingent of Gibraltar writers. In particular we are very pleased to have so many speakers from Morocco and Spain – our two closest neighbours.

Four of the greatest food writers from three continents will be with us to talk about the profound influences that food and drink exert upon both our family and our social lives. Ken Hom – the most famous of Chinese chefs; Madhur Jaffrey – the ultimate authority on Indian cuisine; Claudia Roden – the doyenne of Food Historians of Arabic, Jewish and Spanish cookery; and Professor Jessica Harris – the leading writer on African American dishes.

The eminent Professor Paul Preston will deliver the inaugural Gibraltar Lecture on the subject of the Spanish Civil War and we are honoured that Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor will be with us to speak about his decades of contact with the Papacy, and to celebrate the first festival service – which will then rotate each year among the five principal faiths represented in Gibraltar.

We believe the festival will provide a memorable weekend for the people of Gibraltar and for visitors to the Rock – enabling us to showcase our magnificent Garrison Library and other beautiful historic buildings as festival venues.

The scale and variety of the festival has only been made possible with the exceptional generosity of the Gibunco Group – as title sponsor – supported by nearly 30 Gibraltar and UK companies and institutions. For the past 300 years Gibraltar has had many incarnations – as the greatest fortress in the world, as a place of refuge for the oppressed, as a staging post of Empire, trade and travel. Today Gibraltar is proud to be the home for a rich fusion of faiths and cultures – a great city state, which provides employment and support for both its own people, as well as those from a wide surrounding hinterland.

No doubt, the festival will be another Gibraltar success story that will add further to the eclectic mix that is this thriving Mediterranean community. I trust you will enjoy these literary days. With best wishes

3


4

Cruise ships Independence of the Seas and Queen Victoria in Gibraltar harbour. Over 180 cruise ships visit Gibraltar each year.


The Honourable Neil F Costa MP Minister for Tourism, Commercial Affairs, Public Transport and the Port

As Minister for Tourism, Commercial Affairs, Public Transport and the Port, I am very pleased that the initiative of HM Government of Gibraltar to establish a new international literary festival on the Rock has met with such an enthusiastic response – from the people of Gibraltar and from the literary communities of so many countries.

The festival promises to be a major generator of premium tourism – and an important opportunity each year to bring key journalists and opinion formers to Gibraltar.

I am delighted that so many of the distinguished speakers I met at the Blenheim Palace Literary Festival in 2012, and that the Chief Minister met last March – when he spoke on ‘self determination’ at the Oxford Literary Festival – have accepted our invitations to talk in Gibraltar at the end of October.

We are using every medium to promote the Gibunco Gibraltar International Literary Festival – from advertising campaigns in the UK, Spain and Morocco to the handsome commemorative postage stamps issued in May.

A vitally important element of the festival will be the programme for school children and young people. A generous grant from the John Mackintosh Educational Trust has enabled the Department of Education to schedule a free schools’ day on Friday 25 October and for talks and events over the weekend for children and young people to be free of charge at the John Mackintosh Hall; while senior students and their teachers can attend other appropriate festival events.

Minister Costa with Madhur Jaffrey at the Blenheim Palace Literary Festival at Woodstock 2012

Finally, I would like to pay tribute to Sally Dunsmore and her excellent festival team – who have worked so closely with my Ministry and our Government departments to stage such a prestigious and stimulating series of events – blending the traditions of so many nations with our own.

5


6


Welcome from John D Bassadone Chairman, The Gibunco Group, Gibraltar

The Gibunco Group of companies is delighted to support Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar in its initiative to establish the Gibraltar International Literary Festival.

A family-run business for nearly 50 years, The Gibunco Group is now the most prominent private enterprise in Gibraltar and one of the leading companies of the Western Mediterranean, spanning sectors as diverse as oil and energy (with the Peninsula Petroleum Company) shipping and maritime services, and is the international leader in underwater hull maintenance. Our real estate and property subsidiary has rejuvenated Gibraltar’s waterfront, reclaimed over 30 hectares of land and built more than 2000 apartments. With offices and trading operations all over the world, we are proud to help to bring so many internationally distinguished writers and speakers to the Rock. We extend a warm welcome to them all, as well as to the people of Gibraltar and its many visitors who will enjoy the festival weekend.

Panoramic view of The City of Gibraltar and its harbour

7


Festival Sponsors and Partners

Department of Education

Sponsor of food and wines

Education partner

HM Government of Gibraltar

Event organiser Sponsors of closing dinner

Title sponsor

Gibraltar Tourist Board

Sponsors of festival green room JOHN MACKINTOSH EDUCATIONAL TRUST

Sponsors of printed programme Official Logistics partner

On-site and online booksellers Broadcast media partner

Newspaper partner

INTERNATIONAL 8

The Map Room, Garrison Library

Sponsors of opening dinner


Festival Team Festival Director Sally Dunsmore

Telecoms partner

Special Advisor Tony Byrne Festival Administrator Louise Croft

2014 FESTIVAL DATES Friday 14th to Sunday 16th November

Green Room Manager Rachel Byrne

Support vehicles

Consultant Chef Paul Bloomfield

Oxford Brookes University

Graphic Design Stafford & Stafford Website and Content Editor Derek Holmes Website Design Gibson Strategy

Prestige publishing partner

Publicity Tom Ville at Four Communications Tel: +44 20 3697 4308 (media enquiries only) Bookshop Co-ordinator Jemima Mann

Courtesy cars

Historic Food Consultant Anne Menzies

HM Government of Gibraltar Peter Canessa Director, Gibraltar House London Nicky Guerrero Chief Executive, Gibraltar Tourist Board

London hotel

Yvette Zarb Bensusan Chief Cultural Officer, The Ministry of Culture Dr. Jennifer Ballantine Perera Director, The Garrison Library Thanks to all of the festival volunteers and stewards

Gibraltar Philatelic Bureau

Programme printed by The Gibraltar Chronicle

Website design

The cover illustration depicts an Empire Marketing Board poster from the early 1930s, designed by Charles Pears. By kind permission of The National Archives, Kew.

9


History of Gibraltar Gibraltar can trace its history back almost 3000 years to when the Phoenicians landed in 940BC on the small area of land on the southern edge of Europe and founded the city of Carteia. Its strategic situation at the entrance to the Mediterranean from the Atlantic has made it a constant subject of attack and siege over the centuries. The Moslem general Tariq made a successful landing on the Rock in 711AD as a precursor to a general conquest of Spain. At this time, Gibraltar became known as Jebel Tariq (mountain of Tariq) from which the present name derives. By the 11th century AD, Gibraltar was part of the Arab kingdom of Sevilla. The threat of invasion from African sects led to the building of a fort in 1068, but Gibraltar was eventually overrun by the Almohads.

The 16th century saw a poorly defended Gibraltar facing raids by pirates before a period of relative quiet and peace in the 17th century. All changed at the start of the 18th century when an Anglo-Dutch force landed close by and the English fleet laid siege to Gibraltar, taking the Rock in the name of Charles of Austria, who was pretender to the Spanish throne. Gibraltar was declared a free port in 1704 and the first British governor was appointed in 1707. In 1713, Spain ceded Gibraltar to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht. The last and Great Siege of Gibraltar took place at the end of the 18th century when French and Spanish forces combined in a four-year onslaught, brought to an end by the Treaty of Versailles.

In 1309AD King Ferdinand IV ordered the capture of Gibraltar. The Spaniards laid siege to Gibraltar for one month before the garrison surrendered and the city’s 1500 inhabitants left for North Africa.

There followed a time of prosperity, and Gibraltar was declared a Crown Colony in 1830. Construction of the docks commenced in 1894 and first elections were held in 1922. World War II saw the civilian population evacuated to the UK and 30,000 British military stationed on the Rock.

Few Spaniards wanted to settle in Gibraltar and, by 1333, it was under siege again, this time from Abdul Malik, son of the King of Morocco, who eventually took control of the Rock.

Gibraltarians voted overwhelmingly in 1967 to continue their association with Britain, and Franco reacted by closing the border. The border reopened fully in 1985.

Gibraltar became part of the Muslim Kingdom of Granada but again changed hands in 1462 when it was taken by Castille and became part of the estates of the Duke of Medina Sidonia. It became Spanish crown property in 1501.

Gibraltar today attracts 10 million visitors a year. The tourism and financial services industries have helped to make Gibraltar the second most prosperous territory in the European Union. Fleet in Port Gibraltar, early 20th century by Gustavo Bacarisas

10


A British Man of War before the Rock of Gibraltar by Thomas Whitcombe (1760-1824) 14 The Berger Collection


References to Gibraltar in Poetry and Literature Gibraltar (1914) Wilfred Scawen Blunt Seven weeks of sea, and twice seven days of storm Upon the huge Atlantic, and once more We ride into still water and the calm Of a sweet evening screened by either shore Of Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o’er, Our exile is accomplished. Once again We look on Europe, mistress as of yore Of the fair earth and of the hearts of men. Ay, this is the famed rock, which Hercules And Goth and Moor bequeathed us. At this door England stands sentry. God! to hear the shrill Sweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze, And at the summons of the rock gun’s roar To see her red coats marching from the hill.

Ulysses (1922) James Joyce Molly Bloom’s closing soliloquy

...and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. 12

At Algeciras – A Meditation upon Death (1933) Reference to the Strait of Gibraltar William Butler Yeats The heron-billed pale cattle-birds That feed on some foul parasite Of the Moroccan flocks and herds Cross the narrow Straits to light In the rich midnight of the garden trees Till the dawn break upon those mingled seas. Often at evening when a boy Would I carry to a friend – Hoping more substantial joy Did an older mind commend – Not such as are in Newton’s metaphor, But actual shells of Rosses’ level shore. Greater glory in the Sun, An evening chill upon the air, Bid imagination run Much on the Great Questioner; What He can question, what if questioned I Can with a fitting confidence reply.

Home-thoughts from the Sea (1845) Robert Browning

Nobly, nobly, Cape Saint Vincent to the Northwest died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish ‘mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;

In the dimmest Northeast distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray; “Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?” -say, Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God and pray, While Jove’s planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.


Innocents Abroad (1869) Mark Twain Every now and then my glove purchase in Gibraltar last night intrudes itself upon me. Dan and the ship’s surgeon and I had been up to the great square, listening to the music of the fine military bands and contemplating English and Spanish female loveliness and fashion, and at nine o’clock were on our way to the theater, when we met the General, the Judge, the Commodore, the Colonel, and the Commissioner of the United States of America to Europe, Asia, and Africa, who had been to the Club House to register their several titles and impoverish the bill of fare; and they told us to go over to the little variety store near the Hall of Justice and buy some kid gloves. They said they were elegant and very moderate in price. It seemed a stylish thing to go to the theater in kid gloves, and we acted upon the hint. A very handsome young lady in the store offered me a pair of blue gloves. I did not want blue, but she said they would look very pretty on a hand like mine. The remark touched me tenderly. I glanced furtively at my hand, and somehow it did seem rather a comely member. I tried a glove on my left and blushed a little. Manifestly the size was too small for me. But I felt gratified when she said: "Oh, it is just right!" Yet I knew it was no such thing.

A Vision of Battlements (1965) Anthony Burgess The closing paragraph as he leaves Gibraltar after having been posted there during WW2 Christmas Eve. They awoke with a shock to find their future was upon them. It had appeared suddenly in the night, the giant threatening rock, the vast crouching granite dragon, the towering sky-high sphinx, its forehead bathed in the mild sun.

An Impartial Account of the Late Famous Siege of Gibraltar (1728) Daniel Defoe The inconveniences we laboured under the dearness of fresh provisions were neither few nor inconsiderable. We had salt food in plenty, but the men not being used to such diet, it proved fatal to many, and threw them into distempers that threw a multitude. We had mutton from the Barbary Coast, but nor under eight pence a pound though t’was poor thin stuff without any fat; a goose, though lean, would fetch thirteen and sixpence, or fourteen shillings; and a chicken in the same condition, ten shillings; peas were five and eight pence a peak; and beans eight pence a pound, with the shells; small beer eight pence a quart; and strong beer of Bristol, sixteen pence a bottle, holding about a pint and a half.

‘…the very image of an enormous lion, crouched between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.’ William Makepeace Thackeray

Quotations provided by Dr Jennifer Ballantine Perera, Director of the Garrison Library, Gibraltar

13


The Literary Festival Venues The Gibraltar Garrison Library The magnificent Garrison Library was founded in 1793 by Captain (later Colonel) Drinkwater for his fellow officers who had endured 4 years of the Great Siege (1779-1783) and to spare them from ‘having their minds enervated and vitiated by dissipation’. The Library was opened by HRH The Duke of Kent, the then Governor, in 1804. It holds the finest collection of historic English language books in the Mediterranean. The Library’s original furniture and fixtures, painting, prints and sculpture survive largely intact. The Library was acquired by the Government and is now a major research facility open to the public. During the literary festival, the Library will be the venue for many talks and events; will house the Blackwell’s Festival Bookshop; and the Ballroom will be the Festival Green Room (sponsored by Monarch Airlines).

The Convent

The King’s Chapel

The Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned

By kind permission of His Excellency, The Governor, festival talks will be held in The Ballroom of The Convent.

The King’s Chapel includes part of the original Franciscan Chapel of 1560 and became the chapel for the garrison on The Rock and serves as the Governor’s Chapel. It was rebuilt after extensive damage during the Great Siege and restored again in 1954 after an ammunition ship blew up in Gibraltar Harbour.

On the site of a mosque, converted to a parish church in the 15th century, the building was enlarged by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella who donated the bells and 100 foot tower. Again, reconstructed in 1810 after the Great Siege, Cathedral status was granted in the 19th century.

Originally a Franciscan Friary, The Convent has been the official residence of the Governor of Gibraltar since 1711. There is a beautiful cloister court and elegant walled garden. The ceremony of changing the Guard is undertaken regularly outside The Convent by soldiers of The Royal Gibraltar Regiment. 14


The Cathedral of The Holy Trinity

John Mackintosh Hall

Constructed in the Moorish style in the 1820s and 30s, Holy Trinity was consecrated in 1838 in the presence of the Dowager Queen Adelaide and was raised to Cathedral status in the same year. From 1979 the Anglican Bishops of Gibraltar have also been responsible for all Anglican churches in continental Europe.

John Mackintosh was born in Gibraltar in 1865 and was one of the most successful businessmen of his generation. He died in 1940 and much of his wealth was bequeathed for charitable purposes. His estate funded the building of the John Mackintosh Hall (opened in 1964) which now houses a range of educational and cultural facilities.

The Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club

The King’s Bastion Leisure Centre

Founded in 1829 by officers of the Garrison, the Club was one of the earliest in the Empire. Its sailing academy was established in 2001 and an imposing new clubhouse and facilities were built in 2012.

The 18th century King’s Bastion was the most important defensive position of the westerly fortifications. In the 1960’s a power generating station was constructed within the Bastion. It has since been redeveloped to house facilities for bowling, ice skating, games and fitness, a disco, bars and cafes with two cinemas.

15


The Festival Opening Dinner Grand Battery Hall, Gibraltar (by kind permission of the Commanding Officer of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment) Wednesday 23rd October 2013

The Royal Gibraltar Regiment ceremonial parade

The dinner menu presents traditional Gibraltar dishes Sponsored by

16

Limited ticket availability. See festival website for details

Wines and food presented by Morrisons


Tangier hosts a cultural fusion Writers and speakers at the Gibunco Gibraltar International Literary Festival are to take part in a cultural exchange with colleagues in North Africa. Thursday 24th October 2013 A delegation of speakers at this year’s festival will travel to Tangier on Thursday, October 24, to meet Moroccan writers and cultural figures over lunch. One of the key aims of the literary festival is to bring together all the different cultures that converge at Gibraltar – Mediterranean, European and North African. Festival director Sally Dunsmore said: ‘I know our writers and speakers are looking forward to this visit immensely, and it is part of what has drawn such a fantastic line-up to this year’s festival. Tangier is one of the most remarkable historic cities of North Africa.’ ‘Our festival is an opportunity for authors to meet not only writers from their own cultures but a rich fusion of writers from the English-speaking world, Spain and North Africa. We are all looking forward to a terrific sharing of views and thoughts.’ The visit will be held at the El Minzah Hotel, which was built by the 4th Marquess of Bute in the early 1930s at the same time that he constructed the Rock Hotel in Gibraltar. Supported by

INTERNATIONAL

Tangier has an exceptional literary heritage and, over the years, has attracted many writers and poets from Africa, Europe and North America.

17


The Diamond Jubilee of HM The Queen TRH The Earl and Countess of Wessex greeted on their arrival at Gibraltar by His Excellency The Governor Vice Admiral Sir Adrian Johns KCB CBE KStJ ADC and The Chief Minister of HM Government of Gibraltar The Honourable Fabian Picardo MP 12th June 2012

19


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER Jennifer Ballantine Perera and Levi Attias. Chaired by John Stotesbury

127

Voices from Gibraltar

Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 10am / £10 Gibraltar is a fusion of cultures, but how is that fusion expressed in its writing and what is the Gibraltarian voice? Our panellists address this question and try to identify a term that encapsulates that voice. Can it be described as a post-colonialist voice? Probably not, so what does best describe it? Dr Jennifer Ballantine Perera is director of the Garrison Library, which is also the venue for many festival events and for the authors’ green room. She founded Calpe Press, an independent publishing house in Gibraltar and a specialist publisher of Gibraltar and related subjects. It publishes both fiction and non-fiction. Levi Attias is a poet and lyricist who traces his ancestry back many centuries on Gibraltar and to a time when his Jewish family fled Spain during the 15th-century Inquisition. He says his values are influenced by Anglo-Saxon culture, and by Mediterranean cultures stretching from Gibraltar to Israel. He is a regular contributor to Gibraltar Radio’s early morning programme, Pause for Reflection. Professor John Stotesbury is adjunct professor, University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu. He has written many works on postcolonial literature and trans-culturalism in 20th-century writing and has a particular interest in Gibraltar. He says emerging creative writing from Gibraltar in the last decade suggests a specifically Gibraltarian identity that draws on an intercultural crossing point between old imperial cultures and between the Europe, Mediterranean and Africa of today. Gibraltarian author M G Sanchez will appear at the end of this event to sign copies of his new novel, The Escape Artist. The novel , which spans ten years and moves between Cambridge, Venice and Gibraltar, is about loneliness and broken friendship and what it means to be Gibraltarian in a rapidly changing world.

24

Jennifer Ballantine Perera

Levi Attias

John Stotesbury


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Peter Snow

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER 114

When Britain Burned the White House One of Britain’s best-known journalists and television news presenters Peter Snow takes a look at events that saw British troops enter and set fire to the White House in Washington DC. It was August 1814 and the US army had just been defeated in battle outside Washington. The President and his wife had enough time to pack their belongings and escape before the British army entered. The invaders found dinner still laid out on the dining table.

Photo: Murdo Macleod

The Convent / 10am / £10

Snow tells of the changing fortunes of both sides in this war, which inspired the writing of the American national anthem, the Star Spangled Banner. He uses a wealth of material, including eye witness accounts, to describe the colourful personalities on both sides. These include Britain’s fiery Admiral Cockburn, and the cautious but popular commander Robert Ross, and, on the American side, President James Madison and his courageous and determined wife Dolley, and military heroes such as Joshua Barney and Sam Smith. Snow outlines the farreaching consequences of the conflict for both sides including Britain and America’s decision never to fight each other again. Snow’s father was deputy fortress commander in Gibraltar between 1956 and 1958 when the family lived at Cathedral Square. Snow was appointed ITN diplomatic and defence correspondent in 1966 and reported from all over the world. He moved to the BBC in 1979 and was one of the first and regular presenters on Newsnight when it started in 1980. He is particularly well known for his contribution to the BBC’s election coverage. With his son Dan, he has presented a BBC programme on the Battle of Alamein and two series, Battlefield Britain and 20th Century Battles. He presents Masterteam and Random Edition on BBC Radio 4.

Sponsored by

25


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER John Sutherland and John Crace

110

112

Shadows of a Princess: Diana Princess of Wales by her Private Secretary

Sex and marriage

King’s Chapel / 10am / £10 Sex and marriage do not always go together like the proverbial horse and carriage. From the bawdy Moll Flanders through the closed bedroom door of the Victorians and now 50 Shades novels – what can literature tell us about how to have a good sex life and a happy marriage? With their usual irreverent and amusing take on literature, professor, author and critic John Sutherland and John Crace, John Sutherland author of the digested reads book Brideshead Revisited, take us on a romp through the changing literary attitudes to sex and marriage. Sutherland is emeritus professor of modern English literature at University College, London, and was the 2007 chair of the Booker Prize judges. His works include Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives and 50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know. Crace is a feature writer for the Guardian who is best known for his literary pastiches, the Digested Read. He is also author of two football books, Vertigo: One Football Fan’s Fear of Success, and Harry’s Games: Inside the Mind of Harry Redknapp. He makes two other appearances at the festival to talk about the different styles of football management and to discuss parody with novelist, biographer and Private Eye columnist DJ Taylor.

John Crace

26

Patrick Jephson

Cinema 2, King’s Bastion Leisure Centre / 10am / £10 Patrick Jephson was chosen as equerry to HRH The Princess of Wales at the age of 31, before being promoted to be her first and only private secretary. He served Diana for eight years between 1987 and 1996, the years of her greatest personal fame and deepest personal crisis. He was her closest aide and adviser during this time and no-one knows more about her struggles. Jephson portrays Diana in all her disguises. It is a story of shifting loyalties, self-delusion, shattered hope, defiance and wasted opportunities. It is also a story of the laughter and optimism that were the characteristic of Diana’s court. Jephson is a former Royal Navy officer with many happy memories of visiting Gibraltar. As Diana’s private secretary, he organised her public duties and accompanied her on high-profile tours across the world, meeting the likes of President George H W Bush, Henry Kissinger, Mother Teresa and Robert Mugabe. After the death of the princess, he took up full-time writing, including the bestselling Shadows of a Princess: Diana Princess of Wales 1987-1996 – An Intimate Account by Her Private Secretary. He now lives in Washington DC and is an ABC News contributor who writes and broadcasts for audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. He was recently named Journalist of the Year by the prestigious London Luxury Marketing Council and is working on a book on the history and culture of Azerbaijan.


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER

D J Taylor

120

Diarmaid MacCulloch

107

Silence in Christianity

The Chesterton Lecture Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 12 noon / £10

The Convent / 12 noon / £10

Acclaimed writer and biographer D J Taylor looks at the life and writing of G K Chesterton. Chesterton was born in London to a family that was a member of the well known auctioneer and estate agents business of Chesterton. He was a novelist, Catholic theologian, apologist, debater and writer of mysteries. He wrote about 80 books, several hundred poems and some 200 short stories. His most well-known character is the priestdetective Father Brown and his bestknown novel is The Man Who Was Thursday. He was particularly known for the use of paradox in his writing and for his serious writing on politics, government, theology and philosophy.

One of the world’s leading historians of Christianity and the Church takes a look at the role of silence in Christianity and beyond. Professor Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch is professor of the history of the church at the University of Oxford and an acclaimed author and broadcaster. He is particulary known for his 2009 BBC TV series and book, A History of Christianity.

Taylor is a biographer and novelist currently working on a book about writers between the wars including G K Chesterton. His works include biographies of Thackeray and Orwell – winner of the 2003 Whitbread Biography Prize – and nine novels including Derby Day – longlisted for the Booker; At the Chime of a City Clock; Ask Alice; and Kept: A Victorian Mystery. He is also a well known critic and reviewer, and his other books include A Vain Conceit: British Fiction in the 1980s and After the War: the Novel and England since 1945. He appears at two other festival events, one to discuss parody with Guardian journalist and writer John Crace, and the other to introduce his new novel, The Windsor Faction. Sponsored by Chesterton, Gibraltar

G K Chesterton

In Silence in Christianity, he looks at mixed attitudes to silence in Judaism, Jewish and Christian borrowings from the Greek explorations of the divine, and the silences that were a feature of Jesus’s ministry. He looks at the many forms of silence from prayer and mystical contemplation to shame, evasion and purposeful forgetting. Deliberate silences revealed include the forgetting of history that was not useful to the Church authorities, such as the leadership role of women among the early Christians, and the constant issues Christianity has faced with sexuality. In a more personal reflection, MacCulloch also tackles the silence of God, offering a message of optimism for those who still seek Him. MacCulloch’s other works include Thomas Cranmer, winner of the Whitbread Biography Award, the James Tait Black prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. A History of Christianity won the Cundill Prize, the world’s largest history prize. His most recent television series, How God Made the English, was broadcast in March 2012. 27


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER Jessica Harris talks to Donald Sloan

126

Out of Africa: Guinea Pepper and Gnaouia Food – Unknown Culinary Legacies

Robin Hanbury-Tenison

Great Explorers of Today and Yesterday Cinema 2, King’s Bastion Leisure Centre / 12 noon / £10

The King’s Chapel / 12pm / £10

Robin Hanbury-Tension was one of the greatest explorers of the 20th century and has been on more than 30 expeditions. He led a crossing of South America by river north to south and journeyed to the interior of Borneo. Here he looks at some of the epic explorers of the past, examines some of their modern counterparts, and wonders what is left to explore in the 21st century.

Cultural historian and expert on AfricanAmerican food heritage Dr Jessica Harris talks to the head of Oxford Gastronomica Donald Sloan about the culinary connections between subSaharan Africa, North Africa and Europe. Harris has lectured on African-American foodways at numerous institutions and colleges throughout the United States and abroad and has written extensively about the culture of Africa in the Americas, particularly the foodways. She is author of 12 critically acclaimed cookbooks documenting the foods and foodways of the African Diaspora including Iron Pots and Wooden Spoons: Africa’s Gifts to New World Cooking; Sky Juice and Flying Fish: Traditional Caribbean Cooking; Rum Drinks: 50 Caribbean Cocktails from Mojito to Rum Daisy; and High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America. High on the Hog won the 2012 culinary history award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Harris holds a lifetime achievement award from the Southern Foodways Alliance and the Lafcadio Hearn award as a Louisiana culinary icon. In 2010, she was inducted into the James Beard Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in the United States. She is currently a professor at Queens College/the City University of New York and consultant to the Ray Charles Program in African American Material Culture at Dillard University and the Lowcountry Rice Culture Project. Sloan is head of the Oxford School of Hospitality Management at Oxford Brookes University and chair of Oxford Gastronomica, a specialist centre for the study of food, drink and culture, that works to enhance our relationship with food and drink, and to celebrate their place in our lives. Sponsored by Presented by

In The Modern Explorers, co-edited with Robert Twigger, he brings together a series of mostly first-hand accounts of challenging journeys in some of the remotest and most extreme parts of the planet, from the frozen poles to the hottest deserts, the highest mountains, the depths of the oceans and deep underground caves. Many of the featured explorers are already international celebrities and they demonstrate how exploration continues to deepen our understanding of the world. In The Great Explorers, Hanbury-Tension brings together stories of the 40 greatest explorers in history. The accounts go back 500 years to the beginning of recorded exploration and include the stories of Victorian artist and explorer Marianne North; of Francis Garnier who went to extreme lengths to follow the course of the Mekong river; and of Nain Singh who walked huge distances to map Tibet while counting every pace. Hanbury-Tenison was described by The Sunday Times in 1982 as ‘the greatest explorer of the past 20 years’. He is an author, film-maker, conservationist and campaigner and has been vice-president and gold medallist of the Royal Geographical Society. He is a founder and president of Survival International, the world’s leading organisation supporting tribal people. Sponsored by

28

116


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Mercedes Aguirre

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER 119

El cuadro inacabado Lower Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 12 noon / £10

Leanda de Lisle and Robbert Bosschart Chaired by David Freeman

111

Women of Power in History

Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library /2pm / £10

In 19th century England a painter dies in strange circumstances. In the present day, a young student of art at Cambridge University has recurrent dreams which connect her to some characters and events in the past and with a painting which was never finished. What is the relationship between these two episodes apparently remote in time? Drama, mystery, myth and a touch of the supernatural are the ingredients of this novel. Aguirre is an academic specialising in Greek mythology and literature and a writer of fiction, of retellings of Greek myths and legends, and of stories inspired by Greek myths. She is a lecturer at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid and a visiting fellow at the University of Bristol. She is co-author of a series of books that retell the Greek myths and of one that retells Basque myths. She has also written fiction inspired by Greek myth including Nuestros mitos de cada dia, Mythical Tales of the Everyday World, shortlisted in the I Literary Prize Éride Ediciones; and El narrador de cuentos. She appears at another festival event to discuss myths and legends with English writer Kevin Crossley-Holland. Note: This event is in Spanish – English translation will be provided

Historian Leanda de Lisle and journalist Robbert Bosschart assess the true impact of women behind some of the great male figures of history, including the Tudor monarchs and Alexandra the Great.

Photo: Nick Roberts

Spanish writer and expert in Greek mythology Mercedes Aguirre discusses, in Spanish, her new novel, El cuadro inacabado.

de Lisle has recently published her groundbreaking telling of the Tudor family history from before the Wars of the Roses to the death of Elizabeth I. It presents a family struggling to Leanda de Lisle establish a right to the throne and one dominated by women doing all in their power to secure influence and the line. She uncovers a family more extraordinary than the one we thought we knew and well beyond the headlines of today. De Lisle throws new light on the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth Tudor and presents a reconstruction of the overlooked life of Henry VIII’s niece Margaret Douglas, who plotted successfully for her heirs to inherit Elizabeth’s throne. De Lisle’s Robbert Bosschart previous works are The Sisters Who Would Be Queen, about the lives of Mary, Katherine and Lady Jane Grey, and After Elizabeth: The Death of Elizabeth and the Coming of King James. Bosschart’s book, Todas las mujeres de Alejandro magno, examines the role played by a multitude of women in the life and exploits of Alexander the Great. Classical sources cite 30 women as having an influence on Alexander but only his mother, Olympias, is described in detail and then only negatively. Bosschart looks at the role played by all of Alexander’s women, including that of the most crucial, Sisygambis, the Queen Mother of Persia, and that of his two foster mothers and a mysterious prophetess. Bosschart has been the Spanish correspondent for NOS TV and other Dutch media since 1966. 29


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER Paul Mellars. Introduced by Clive Finlayson

124

Gibraltar and the Evolution of Man

Cinema 2, King’s Bastion Leisure Centre / 2pm /£10

Professor Sir Paul Mellars is the world authority on Neanderthal man and is a regular visitor to Neanderthal sites in Gibraltar. He will talk about the evidence for Neanderthal man in Gibraltar. He will be introduced by Professor Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, whose own research suggests that Gibraltar could have been the last refuge of Neanderthal man. Mellars is emeritus professor of prehistory and human evolution at the University of Cambridge. He has written several books on early man, including The Emergence of Modern Humans and The Neanderthal Legacy. Mellars and Finlayson have often visited Gibraltar’s Neanderthal sites together. Finlayson has published various works, mainly about his excavations of the last known Neanderthal site at Gorham’s Cave in Gibraltar, including Neanderthals and Modern Humans: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective.

The Silent Tide Lower Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 2pm / £10 Bestselling author Rachel Hore introduces her new novel, The Silent Tide, set in the world of London publishing past and present. Emily Gordon, editor at a London publishing house, commissions an account of the great English novelist, Hugh Morton. She finds herself caught between Morton’s formidable widow, Jacqueline, anxious to protect his secrets, and the charming and ambitious biographer, Joel Richards. Someone is sending Emily messages about Morton’s past and she discovers a buried story that has to be told.

Hore is well known for stories that grippingly entwine the past and present. She knows the world of London publishing well having worked in it for many years before moving with her family to Norwich, where she teaches publishing at the University of East Anglia. Her previous novels include A Place of Secrets, which was a Richard and Judy Book Club selection, A Gathering Storm, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and shortlisted for the 2012 RNA Historical Novel of the Year, and The Glass Painter’s Daughter, shortlisted for the 2010 RNA Romantic Novel of the Year. Hore is married to novelist and biographer D J Taylor, who also appears at the festival. She will give a masterclass on writing a novel at a separate event.

Sponsored by

30

115

Photo: Jonathan Ring

Gibraltar is surrounded by water, but it was not always so. The water level was much lower in prehistoric times and the peninsula was surrounded by a fertile coastal plain that supported the early humans. In 1848, the first known skull of a Neanderthal adult was found at Forbes’ Quarry on the north face of the Rock. It is believed to be about 50,000 years old. Other Neanderthal remains have been found around the Rock, including evidence that they could have been living in the area as recently as 28,000 years ago.

Rachel Hore


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER

William Chislett talks to Paul Preston

121

Shattered by War and Exile: Arturo Barea and Manuel Chaves Nogales King’s Chapel / 2pm / £10 Madrid-based journalist William Chislett talks to historian Professor Paul Preston about two Spanish writers, Arturo Barea and Manuel Chaves Nogales, whose lives were shattered by the Spanish Civil War and who died as exiles in England. Barea worked as a censor at the Foreign Ministry press office. During the siege of Madrid, he broadcast as An Unknown Voice of Madrid, telling stories about life in William Chislett the besieged city. As defeat approached for the Spanish Republican government and, because of difficulties with the Communist Party, he was forced to leave Spain. He eventually arrived in England where he worked for the BBC Latin American Service and wrote books and contributed to literary reviews and publications. His best-known work is his autobiographical trilogy, La Forja de un Rebelde, The Forging of a Rebel.

Manuel Chaves Nogales

Chaves Nogales, a journalist and writer, left Spain before the civil war was over. He wrote one of the most highly regarded books on bullfighting, Belmonte, Killer of Bulls; and his Heroes, Beasts and Martyrs of Spain is considered one of the best illustrations of suffering on both sides during the civil war. He lived in Paris for a while but was forced to abandon France for England as he was on the Gestapo wanted list. In London, he continued his work as a journalist fighting extreme right and left positions but died in 1944 at the age of only 46. Chislett is a veteran of the Spanish scene. He covered the transition to democracy between 1975 and 1978 for The Times and was Mexico correspondent for the Financial Times between 1978 and 1984. He writes about Spain for the Elcano Royal Institute and has published other works on the country. Chislett speaks at another festival event on Spain: What Everyone Needs to Know.

Arturo Barea

31


FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER

www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Madhur Jaffrey and Hardeep Singh Kohli. Chaired by Donald Sloan

122

Spice Workshop

The Convent / 2pm / £10 Two great exponents of Indian food in print and on screen, writer and actress Madhur Jaffrey and broadcaster and writer Hardeep Singh Kohli, come together to discuss their love of spices and to offer some tastings. Jaffrey is an award-winning actress and one of the world’s best-known authorities on Indian food. She first came to notice for her role as a Bollywood star in the 1965 film Shakespeare Wallah and went on to star in several Merchant Ivory films and on the stage in Broadway and the West End. An Invitation to Indian Cookery, published in 1973, was the first of many cookery books, and Jaffrey went on to star in her own BBC cookery show Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery. She has a new series, Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Nation, on the Good Food Channel, which is accompanied by a book of the same name. She appears at two other festival events to talk about her life in film and to discuss the culture of food with fellow cookery writer Ken Hom and charity trustee Lady Penny Holmes. Singh Kohli is a writer, and radio and television broadcaster who was runner-up in the first series of BBC Masterchef and went on to make two series for UKTV Food and publish his first book, Indian Takeaway: A Very British Story. In Indian Takeaway, the Glasgow-born Singh Kohli sets off to find his roots in India. He has also won acclaim for his witty and engaging live cookery and chat show the Nearly Naked Chef, and followed it up with his Indian Takeaway tour, in which he sought the best Indian takeaway in the UK. Singh Kohli also appears at a festival school event.

Sponsored by Presented by

32


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER

Joanne Harris talks to Paul Blezard

109

Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé The Convent / 4pm / £10

Photo: Jennifer Robertson

The acclaimed author of Chocolat Joanne Harris returns to the same characters for a third time in Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé. Readers were first introduced to the heroine Vianne in Chocolat, in the village of Lansquenet, then followed her to Paris in The Lollipop Shoes, where she settles with Roux and her two children. Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé picks up events four years on with Vianne and Roux still living on their houseboat chocolaterie in Paris with Anouk, now 15 and on the verge of womanhood, and Rosette, eight and facing her own challenges. A letter from the dead calls them back to Lansquenet. On the surface, the village is just as it was, but a community of Moroccans has grown up. The scent of spices is in the air, there are women veiled in black, and opposite the church, there is a minaret. Harris is the author of 13 novels. Her works have been published in more than 40 countries and have won a number of British and international awards. Chocolat was turned into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Her other novels include Blackberry Wine and Five Quarters of the Orange. She recently published a volume of short stories, A Cat, A Hat, and a Piece of String, which are the subject of a separate talk at the festival. She will also speak at a children’s event about her Rune series of novels.

Sponsored by

33


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER Joseph Garcia talks to Nicky Guerrero

125

Gibraltar: The Making of a People

Rose George

203

Deep Sea and Foreign Going Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 4pm / £10

The Deputy Chief Minister of Gibraltar Dr Joseph Garcia talks to chief executive of the Gibraltar Tourist Board Nicky Guerrero about his book, Gibraltar: The Making of a People, a testament to the struggle of a small people to achieve political emancipation. Dr Garcia is a historian and the work, published in 1994, tells of Gibraltar’s fight to remain part of the United Kingdom. Its central theme is the weakening of the British Government’s position over Spanish claims from the 1960s in stark contrast to the strengthening of resolve among Gilbratarians that they would not be pushed in a direction they did not want to go. The book was awarded the Gibraltar Heritage Trust Senior Award in 1994.

Journalist and acclaimed author Rose George lifts the lid on the world of shipping – one that she says is obscure and badly regulated and yet is far more influential on our daily lives than at any time in history. There are more than 40,000 freighters on the seas and they bring us almost everything we eat, wear and work with. George followed ships across the globe from Felixstowe to the Malacca Straits via the Bay of Biscay, Suez Canal and Gulf of Aden. And she met dockworkers, tycoons, missionaries, stevedores, ship-spotters, beachcombers, environmentalists and even robots.

Dr Garcia is a historian and politician. He is leader of the Gibraltar Liberal Party and Deputy Chief Minister of the Government of Gibraltar.

Photo: Karen Robintson

Cathedral of the Holy Trinity / 4pm / £10

George tells the stories of those who spend their lives at sea, a life often spent in boredom and loneliness but also punctuated by stories of survival. She investigates the poor regulation she says allows companies to deny their responsibilities and offers stories of pirates, pollution, wreckage, whales and dolphins, mapping and navigation.

Joseph Garcia

Nicky Guerrero

George is a regular contributor to national newspapers such as The Guardian and Independent. She is author of A Life Removed: Hunting for Refuge in the Modern World, which was longlisted for the Ulysees Reportage Prize, and of The Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Waste, which was shortlisted for the BMA Book Prize and an Economist Top Ten Book of the Year. ‘Rose George, with her precise and beautiful clarity of prose, has now fired a brilliant star-shell over the wine-dark sea and the ships that pass in its night, illuminating the details of the invisible ocean industry that is, and always will be, essential to all of us.’ Simon Winchester, author of Atlantic

34

Sponsored by


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER

Alexandra Harris

101

Virginia Woolf: Life and Work

Peter Kemp and David Grylls

207

The Power of the Critic

King’s Chapel / 4pm / £10

Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 6pm / £10

Alexandra Harris published her first book, Romantic Moderns, to great critical acclaim, winning the 2010 Guardian First Book Award. In it, she took an original look at the lives and work of English writers and artists from Virginia Woolf to John Piper. Now she turns her attention exclusively to the life and work of Virginia Woolf.

Two leading critics discuss what it is like to be a literary reviewer. How do they select the books to review? What is the power of the critic? And what influence do they believe they have on whether a book succeeds or not?

Harris looks at each of Woolf’s novels in context and considers why the author continues to haunt and inspire us 70 years after her death. She uses vivid detail from her life to evoke Woolf’s preoccupations and the background to her work, from Victorian childhood to the experimental Bloomsbury period. Harris studied English at Christ Church, Oxford, before working in the British art department at Christie’s, and then going on to do an MA in European art at the Courtauld Institute. She then turned an academic thesis at Oxford into Romantic Moderns. Since 2007, she has been a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, teaching modernist and American fiction and running a new MA in contemporary literature. ‘Every page of Harris’s insightful book is pervaded by Woolf ’s passion for life, her sense of fun and her immense capacity for joy . . . by the final page Harris has made you desperate to tackle the novels, to get stuck in and to submerge yourself in Woolf ’s unmistakable, wholly original and imaginative responses to the world.’

Peter Kemp

Peter Kemp is chief fiction reviewer for The Sunday Times and broadcasts widely on arts programmes on BBC Radio 3 and 4. He has written books on Muriel Spark and HG Wells and edited the Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations. Kemp is also heavily involved with the Oxford Literary Festival as part of the newspaper’s title sponsorship.

Dr David Grylls is a fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford, and is a tutor on and formerly director of the literature and creative writing programmes at Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education, where he taught a range of courses from Shakespeare to the present day. In addition to numerous articles in academic and popular journals, he is the author of Guardians and Angels: Parents and Children in NineteenthCentury Literature, The Paradox of Gissing, and Dickens: A Viewers’ Guide – written to accompany two television serialisations. He reviews new fiction for The Sunday Times and biographical and critical books for the Times Literary Supplement. He has lectured widely in America, and also in France, Sweden, Italy and Greece.

Sponsored by Chesterton, Gibraltar

Daily Mail Sponsored by David Grylls

35


FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER

www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

The Gibraltar Lecture – 2013 Paul Preston

The Spanish Holocaust Cathedral of the Holy Trinity / 6pm / £10 Professor Paul Preston is regarded both inside and outside Spain as one of the foremost historians of 20th-century Spain. He has written a definitive biography of General Franco and chronicled the full horrors of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, uncovering the brutal details that many Spaniards would like to forget. Many Spaniards have been struggling in recent years, in the face of efforts to block them and accusations of stirring up the ashes, to find out what happened to their friends and families. In The Spanish Holocaust, Preston exposes the full truth of mass extra-judicial murder, executions after cursory military trials, torture, systematic abuse of women and children, and overcrowded prisons and camps. He looks at why Franco and his supporters sought to eliminate all those who did not think as they did and also investigates the atrocities committed behind Republican lines. The narrative includes chilling portraits of those who organised the atrocities on both sides. Preston is professor of contemporary Spanish history at the London School of Economics. His works include We Saw Spain Die; The Triumph of Democracy in Spain; Franco: A Biography; Juan Carlos: A People’s King; and The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution, Revenge. He holds one of Spain’s highest honours, the Gran Cruz de la Orden de Isabel la Católica, is a CBE, and is a fellow of the British Academy. This inaugural Gibraltar Lecture is at the personal invitation of the Chief Minister of HM Government of Gibraltar, the Honourable Fabian Picardo MP

36

113


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Saira Shah talks to Roma Tearne

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER 118

The Mouse-Proof Kitchen The Convent / 6pm / £10

Journalist, film-maker and writer Saira Shah has always been one for a challenge. In 2001, she famously entered Afghanistan alone disguised as a refugee to report on what life was like for a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, Beneath the Veil. As the daughter of an Afghan writer of books on Sufism and of a half Parsee, half English mother, she says she had the background to do the job and never hesitated. Her later memoir about Afghanistan, The Storyteller’s Daughter, won the Premio Napoli, and she also won a Current Affairs BAFTA for the documentary Death in Gaza. Today, Shah faces a new and entirely different challenge as the mother of a profoundly brain-damaged five-year-old daughter who can do nothing for herself. Her experiences of bringing up her daughter inspired her to write a moving first novel, The Mouse-Proof Kitchen. It tells the story of Anna, a chef, and her husband, Tobias, a composer, who are about to realise their dream to move to France where Anna will work in a cookery school, when they have a daughter, Freya, who is born with ‘brains like scrambled eggs’. There are obvious autobiographical elements, including the decision of Anna and Tobias to move to France – Shah and her partner, Scott Goodfellow, live with their daughter in Languedoc – but the novel, she says, is more an imagining of how bad things could be. Shah will talk about her work as a reporter for Channel 4 news and as a documentary maker, about the challenges of bringing up a braindamaged child, and about her new novel. Her brother, the novelist Tahir Shah, is also appearing at the festival. Sponsored by The Gibraltar Paliament House, built in 1817 for the merchants of the City as The Exchange and Commercial Library


FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER

www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Ben Okri talks to Paul Blezard

102

The Conjunction of Africa and Europe King’s Chapel / 6pm / £10 Booker prize-winning novelist and poet Ben Okri talks to broadcaster and editor Paul Blezard about the conjunction of Africa and Europe both from the perspective of having lived in both countries and of writing about Africa while living in Europe. Okri is considered one of the foremost African writers of the post-modern period. He was born in Nigeria and moved to London with his family before the age of two. The family moved back to Nigeria when he was nine and he later returned to England to study comparative literature at Essex University. However, his funding fell through and he found himself penniless and homeless. At 21, he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows, and in 1991, The Famished Road, which won the Booker Prize for Fiction. The Famished Road features a narrator, Azaro, a spirit child who, in the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria exists between life and death. The novel plays on the tension between the land of the living, with its violence and political struggles, and the temptations of the carefree kingdom of the spirits. Azaro features in other Okri novels. The mixture of the real and the spiritual worlds, in which he particularly draws on the myths and beliefs of his African heritage, has often led Okri to be categorised as a magical realist, although it is a categorisation he rejects. Altogether, Okri has published eight novels, as well as collections of poetry, short stories and essays, and his work has been translated into 20 languages. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been awarded the OBE as well as numerous international prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction and the Chianti Rufino-Antico Fattore. He is a vice-president of the English Centre of International PEN and was presented with a Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. Ben Okri in the library of The Queen’s College at the Oxford Literary Festival, 2012

Sponsored by

38


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER Rachel Hore

210

Writing a Novel: A Masterclass

208

Turkey: A Short History

Lower Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 10am / £15

King’s Chapel / 10am / £10

Bestselling author Rachel Hore gives a two-hour masterclass on writing a novel. Where do you get your inspiration and how do you go about constructing a plot? What about your characters? How do you draw them and make them believable to the reader? What are the writing techniques that will help you make your novel interesting? And how do you go about getting it published?

Celebrated historian Norman Stone tells the complex story of Turkey from the 11th-century arrival of the Seljuks in Anatolia to the 21stcentury republic and its bid for EU membership. The cast of characters includes Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, and the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk. Stone looks at the rise and decline of the Ottoman Empire, and at how the great powers argued over it, demonstrating how a country balanced between two continents continues to evoke passionate debate even today. And he examines a modern republic where East and West, religion and secularisation, and tradition and modernisation are conflicting parts of the national identity.

Hore is well known for stories that grippingly entwine the past and present. She knows the world of London publishing well, having worked in it for many years before moving with her family to Norwich, where she teaches publishing at the University of East Anglia. Her latest novel is The Silent Tide, set in the world of London publishing past and present, and the subject of another appearance by Hore at the festival. Her previous novels include A Place of Secrets, which was a Richard and Judy Book Club selection, A Gathering Storm, which was a Sunday Times bestseller and shortlisted for the 2012 RNA Historical Novel of the Year, and The Glass Painter’s Daughter, shortlisted for the 2010 RNA Romantic Novel of the Year. Hore is married to novelist and biographer D J Taylor, who also appears at the festival. This event last two hours.

44

Norman Stone

Stone is director of the TurkishRussian centre at Bilkent University, Ankara, and a former professor of modern history at the University of Oxford. He was also a foreign policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher. His previous books include The Eastern Front, 1914–1917, winner of the Wolfson Prize; Europe Transformed 1878-1919, winner of the Fontana History of Europe Prize; Hitler; World War One: A Short History; and The Atlantic and Its Enemies: A Personal History of the Cold War. His latest work is World War II: A Short History.


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER

Thomas Mogford, Jason Webster and Robert Daws. Chaired by David Freeman

205

Crime in the Sun

Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 10am / £10

Thomas Mogford was studying to be a lawyer and looked into practising abroad. Instead, he decided to become a writer and to set a series of thrillers in the Mediterranean. Thus was born Spike Sanguinetti, a lawyer from Gibraltar, the hero of Shadow of the Rock, its sequel, The Sign of the Cross, and of a third novel in the Thomas Mogford trilogy to be published next year. Shadow of the Rock finds Sanguinetti travelling to Tangiers to help a friend accused of murder, while in The Sign of the Cross he is in Malta investigating the violent deaths of an aunt and uncle.

Sponsored by

Photo: Mark Pringle

Three crime writers who set their works in Gibraltar, Spain and the wider Mediterranean join forces to discuss their different approaches to ‘crime in the sun’.

Jason Webster

Jason Webster is a US-born writer, educated in England, Germany, Italy and Egypt, who moved to Spain after graduating from the University of Oxford. He is author of several acclaimed travel books and, more recently, has started writing a series of crime novels set in Valencia and featuring brandy and flamenco-loving chief inspector Max Camara of the Spanish National Police. The most recent, and third in the series, is The Anarchist Detective, which finds Camara in the thick of an intensely personal case that puts him in severe danger and finds him questioning his past and his future in the police. Robert Daws is an actor best known for his roles as Dr George Ormerod in ITV’s The Royal, Tuppy Glossop in Jeeves and Wooster and Roger in Outside Edge. His debut novel, The Rock, is a crime thriller set in Gibraltar. Detective Sergeant Tamara Sullivan arrives in Gibraltar on a three-month secondment from the Metropolitan Police Service and investigates the death of a young police constable found hanging from the ceiling of his apartment. Robert Daws

45


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER Christopher Lloyd

212

What on Earth? Wallbook of Natural History Lower Exhibition Gallery, John Mackintosh Hall / 10am / Free Suitable for families

Lloyd is the founder of What on Earth Publishing Ltd, the company behind the What on Earth? wallbook. His books include: What on Earth Happened? and What on Earth Evolved? Lloyd’s presentations, featuring his wallbooks and his coat of many pockets, are extremely popular in schools and at literary festivals across the UK. He will be doing four events a day at the Gibraltar International Literary Festival featuring the What on Earth? books on history; science and engineering; natural history; and sport. The talks are free and suitable for children aged over six but are also aimed at adults. Lloyd’s talk on the What on Earth? Wallbook of Natural History will also take place at the same venue at 10am on Sunday, October 27. Tickets are free but can be ordered for this event via the usual channels.

Sponsored by JOHN MACKINTOSH EDUCATIONAL TRUST

46

214

My Life on Stage and Screen followed by a screening of Heat and Dust Cinema 2, King’s Bastion Leisure Centre / 10am / £10 Photo: Lisa Levart

Popular science writer Christopher Lloyd tells the complete story of natural history in 1,000 species on a 2.3-metre timeline beginning with the formation of the Earth to the latest breakthroughs in evolutionary science. The unique illustrations link subjects together from algae to asteroids, and streams of colour represent key themes, including the land, sea and sky.

Madhur Jaffrey talks to Donald Sloan

Madhur Jaffrey may be known as a world authority on Indian food but it is as an award-winning actress on screen and stage that she first came to prominence. Here she talks to Donald Sloan, head of Oxford Gastronomica, about her life in the movies, on Broadway and in the West End. Conversation will be followed by a screening of Heat and Dust.

Jaffrey was born in Delhi and won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London following a performance in Tennessee William’s Auto-da-Fe. From there her career took off. She appeared in various BBC TV and radio plays and enjoyed a spell in New York before her big success in Shakespeare Wallah. The film followed a troupe of travelling Shakespeare actors as they grappled with a fall in demand for English theatre in the face an emerging Indian film industry. Madhur Jaffrey was the first to introduce Ismail Merchant to James Ivory. She went on to star in further Merchant Ivory films, including Heat and Dust and The Cotton Girls, and to win accolades for theatre performances on Broadway and in the West End, and continues to appear in movies and TV films today. An Invitation to Indian Cookery, published in 1973, was the first of many cookery books, and Jaffrey went on to star in her own BBC cookery show Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery. She has a new series, Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Nation, on the Good Food Channel. She appears at two other festival events to discuss the culture of food with leading Chinese chef Ken Hom and charity trustee Lady Penny Holmes, and alongside food writer and television journalist Hardeep Singh Kohli in a spice workshop.


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Joanne Harris talks to Paul Blezard

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER 201

A Cat, A Hat, and a Piece of String King’s Chapel / 12 noon / £10

Chocolat author Joanne Harris talks about her recently published collection of short stories, A Cat, A Hat and A Piece of String. The title recalls the answer Harris once gave to the question: What three items would you take to a desert island? The cat was for company, the hat for shelter from the sun, and the string to amuse the cat or for its multiple purposes. She also felt she could dream up a hundred different scenarios involving the three items. The short stories are a little like that, she says, linked in all kinds of ways to each other and to her novels. In A Cat, A Hat and A Piece of String, the reader is invited to the house where it is Christmas all year round; meets a ghost living on a Twitter timeline; and finds a newborn baby created with sugar, spice and lashings of cake. There is a young girl in the Congo who rides the rapids to earn a crust of bread, and Norse gods battle for survival in modern Manhattan. Harris is the author of 13 novels. Her works have been published in more than 40 countries and have won a number of British and international awards. Chocolat was turned into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Her other novels include Blackberry Wine and Five Quarters of the Orange. She recently returned to the characters in Chocolat for the third part of her food trilogy, Peaches for Monsieur Le Curé, which is the subject of a separate talk at the festival. She will also speak at a children’s event about her Rune series of novels.

Christopher Lloyd

211

What on Earth? Wallbook of History Lower Exhibition Gallery, John Mackintosh Hall /12 noon / Free Suitable for families Popular science writer Christopher Lloyd tells the story of millions of years of human evolution, including the rise and fall of civilisations, the top battles the world has seen, and the life of the planet from the Big Bang to the present day. Lloyd’s wallbook features more than a thousand hand-drawn illustrations and chronicles every major event in natural and human history. Lloyd is the founder of What on Earth Publishing Ltd, the company behind the What on Earth? wallbook. His books include: What on Earth Happened? and What on Earth Evolved? Lloyd’s presentations, featuring his wallbooks and his coat of many pockets, are extremely popular in schools and at literary festivals across the UK. He will be doing four events a day at the Gibraltar International Literary Festival featuring the What on Earth? books on history; science and engineering; natural history; and sport. The talks are free and suitable for children aged over six but are also aimed at adults. Lloyd’s talk on the What on Earth? Wallbook of History will also take place at the same venue at 12 noon on Sunday, October 27. Tickets are free but can be ordered for this event via the usual channels.

Sponsored by JOHN MACKINTOSH EDUCATIONAL TRUST

47


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER

Ken Hom

217

A Lunch with Ken Hom Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club / 12:30pm / £100

One of the world’s greatest Chinese chefs, Ken Hom, prepares and cooks a special menu for festival-goers at the Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club. This exclusive lunch, including wines, features a menu prepared by Hom who will cook alongside chefs of Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club. Guests will have a chance to sample exactly what has made prime ministers and presidents the world over turn to Hom when they need a Chinese theme to a state dinner. Hom, who will say a few words during the lunch, is widely regarded as the leading world authority on Chinese cooking. He learnt to cook as a young boy in his uncle’s Chicago restaurant. He taught cookery to help with his university fees, and his efforts were so popular he was recommended to the Culinary Academy. He was spotted by the great Indian food writer Madhur Jaffrey,

who recommended him to the BBC, and Ken Hom’s Chinese Cookery was born in 1984. A number of further BBC series followed. He has written more than 30 cookery books. The latest, Exploring China, A Culinary Adventure, accompanied a successful BBC2 series. Hom now has his own range of cookware, and acts as a consultant for dozens of leading hotels and restaurants and for the Cathay Pacific airline. He was awarded the OBE for services to culinary arts in 2009. He appears at another festival event to discuss the culture of food with Jaffrey and with charity trustee Lady Penny Holmes.

Sponsored by

Presented by

49


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER Nhean Haynes de Domecq talks to Jennifer Ballantine Perera

Rock Cakes and Other Delights: Gibraltar’s History Told Through Food Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 12 noon / £10 Nhean Haynes de Domecq talks about the history of her merchant family and the food recipes handed down through the generations to publisher and Garrison Library director Jennifer Ballantine Perera. Haynes de Domecq is a member of the Saccone family, one of Gibraltar’s key merchant families of the last two centuries. In Rock Cakes and Other Delights, she weaves together the story of her family and of Gibraltar with the family recipes. Family members began keeping recipe notebooks in the 1840s. They were handed down through the generations and provide both a record of the food that was being cooked but also a fascinating insight into the daily life of the times. They helped Haynes de Domecq to look back at the lives of members of the Saccone family but also to give an insight into a time of immense social and political change in Gibraltar. There will be an opportunity to taste food made with some of the recipes in the book. Ballantine Perera is director of the Garrison Library, which is also the venue for many festival events and for the authors’ green room. She founded Calpe Press, an independent publishing house in Gibraltar and publisher of Rock Cakes and Other Delights. Calpe Press is a specialist publisher of Gibraltar and related subjects and publishes both fiction and non-fiction.

Sponsored by

The Reading Room, the Gibraltar Garrison Library

50

Nhean Haynes

216


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

William Chislett

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER 206

Spain: What Everyone Needs to Know King’s Chapel / 2pm / £10

Madrid-based journalist William Chislett uncovers everything you need to know about Spain, from the Muslim conquest of 711 to the internal strife and austerity measures of the present day and the collapse of its real estate and construction sectors. He explains why Spain is much more than a country of bullfighting and flamenco and why what happens there matters. He says its future will significantly shape that of the European Union. Chislett explains how the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War were laid to rest and how the country moved to democracy. He covers issues such as the devolution of power to the regions, the creation of the welfare state, the influx of millions of immigrants and how Spain can create a more sustainable economic model. Chislett is a veteran of the Spanish scene. He covered the transition to democracy between 1975 and 1978 for The Times and was Mexico correspondent for the Financial Times between 1978 and 1984. He writes about Spain for the Elcano Royal Institute and has published other works on the country including The Spanish Media Since Franco; España: en busca del éxito; and Spain: At a Turning Point in 1994. He has a weekly column in the online newspaper El Imparcial.

D J Taylor and John Crace

218

Parody

Lower Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 2pm / £10 Parody, according to F R Leavis, demeaned the achievements of the writer being parodied. On the other hand, English literature is full of parodists – from Thackeray and Max Beerbohm to more recent exponents such as Craig Brown – whose work confirms that top-class parody is actually a form of literary criticism, exposing a writer’s quirks and limitations with a precision that may be just as valuable as a full-blown critical essay.

DJ Taylor

Here D J Taylor, novelist, biographer and author of Private Eye’s long-running What You Didn’t Miss spot, and John Crace, who writes the Guardian’s Digested Read column, discuss the nature of parody, great parodists of the past, the uses to which it can be put and the idea, canvassed by Craig Brown, that large amounts of modern life are so absurd and ridiculous as to be increasingly ‘beyond’ the parodist’s scope.

Taylor is a biographer and novelist. His works include biographies of Thackeray and Orwell, and nine novels including Derby Day and At the Chime of a City Clock. He talks about his latest novel, The Windsor Faction, at a separate event and also delivers the festival’s Chesterton Lecture. Crace is a feature writer for the Guardian who is best known for his literary pastiches, the Digested Read. He is also author of two football books, Vertigo: One Football Fan’s Fear of Success, and Harry’s Games: Inside the Mind of Harry Redknapp. He makes two other appearances at the festival to talk about the different styles of football management and to discuss with Professor John Sutherland the changing attitudes to sex and marriage in literature.

Sponsored by

51


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER Roma Tearne

117

A Journey: From Sri Lanka to Writer Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 2pm / £10 Sri Lanka-born novelist Roma Tearne talks about the journey she made from Sri Lanka to the UK via Gibraltar and the part it played in her decision to become a writer. The ten-year-old Tearne and her mother were fleeing conflict in 1960s Sri Lanka. She has vivid memories of the journey, including the boat arriving in Gibraltar. It was then that she turned to her mother and announced that she would become a writer when she arrived in the UK. She is currently working on a short story based on that journey. Tearne will also talk about her novels, many of which are set against the backdrop of conflict and violence in Sri Lanka. Her first, Mosquito, was shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award. The latest, The Road to Urbino, is a story of obsession, love and art set in Tuscany, Sri Lanka and London. She will discuss the themes running through them, the entwining of political and personal issues, ideas of home and homeland and what they mean in terms of who we are, and the beauty and horror of memory.

Christopher Lloyd

What on Earth? Wallbook of Sport

Lower Exhibition Gallery, John Mackintosh Hall / 2pm / free Suitable for families Popular science writer Christopher Lloyd tells the story of sport from the first Olympics in 776BC to London 2012. Along the way he covers hundreds of top sporting moments. Which ancient Olympic superstar was eaten by wolves? Who was the most notorious cheat in the world of Roman chariot racing? What’s the worst ever round of golf in a professional tournament? Who is regarded as the first billionaire in modern sport? Lloyd is the founder of What on Earth Publishing Ltd, the company behind the What on Earth? wallbook. His books include: What on Earth Happened? and What on Earth Evolved? Lloyd’s presentations, featuring his wallbooks and his coat of many pockets, are extremely popular in schools and at literary festivals across the UK. He will be doing four events a day at the Gibraltar International Literary Festival featuring the What on Earth? books on history; science and engineering; natural history; and sport. The talks are free and suitable for children aged over six but are also aimed at adults. Lloyd’s talk on the What on Earth? Wallbook of Sport will also take place at the same venue at 2pm on Sunday, October 27. Tickets are free but can be ordered for this event via the usual channels.

Tearne is an artist, novelist and filmmaker. She trained as a painter and film-maker at the Ruskin School of Fine Art in Oxford and was Leverhulme artist in residence at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. She has written five novels and has been short-listed for the Costa, the Kirimaya and LA Times book prizes and long-listed for the Orange Prize in 2011.

Sponsored by

52

213

Sponsored by JOHN MACKINTOSH EDUCATIONAL TRUST


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Josh Shoemake

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER 202

Tangier: A Literary Guide for Travellers

Sanford Allen talks to Paul Blezard

209

My Life and Music

Lower Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 4pm / £10

King’s Chapel / 4pm / £10

Tangier lies just thirty six miles across the sea from Gibraltar, right at the northernmost tip of Africa. It has been described as an ‘edge’ city, attracting outcasts, spies, outlaws and more than a few writers. Josh Shoemake provides a unique insight into this city through the eyes of the many literary figures who have been there and been seduced by its charms. Its nature and position has attracted writers working on the edge of literary form. William Burroughs called it the ‘interzone’. Tangier inspired some of the most incendiary and influential works of our time, including Burroughs’ Naked Lunch and Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky.

Renowned violinist Sanford Allen talks about his life and music and performs a recital for the audience. Allen became the first black musician to gain a regular place in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra when he joined in 1962. Since leaving in 1977 for a solo career, he has worked with many leading orchestras including the Detroit Symphony, the Miami Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony, the Quebec Symphony and the Symphony of the New World. He has won many awards, including the Federation of Music Clubs award and the Koussevitzky International Recording Award.

Many ‘edge’ writers were drawn to Tangier and the list includes Ibn Battuta, Samuel Pepys, Alexandre Dumas, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Walter Harris, Jean Genet, Paul and Jane Bowles, Tennessee Williams, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Patricia Highsmith, Jack Kerouac, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Allen Ginsberg, Alfred Chester, Joe Orton, and Mohamed Choukri.

Allen is musical director of the Clarion Concerts in Columbia County Leaf Peepers Concerts. Clarion Concerts commissions a piece of chamber music each year and Allen invites other world-renowned musicians to join him in playing old and new music every autumn. While Allen’s work has largely been in classical music, he has also performed in popular films, including Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Get on the Bus and American Splendor. He is married to the actress and cookery writer Madhur Jaffrey , who makes a number of appearances at the festival to talk about food and her life as an actress. There will be a drinks reception after the event.

Shoemake was born in Virginia and read English at Columbia University. He taught literature at the American School of Tangier and was headmaster of The American School of Marrakesh. While in Tangier, he formed close friendships with Paul Bowles, Mohamed Choukri and other writers and artists. He is also writing a memoir of his time in Morocco. ‘Tangier: A Literary Guide for Travellers is a truly dazzling and extraordinary book . . . it’s the perfect companion for an exotic journey or an armchair afternoon. The kind of book that educates, amuses, and charms with every page, it’s one that reveals the magical underbelly of Tangier like nothing else.’

Sponsored by

Tahir Shah, author of The Caliph’s House 53


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER Cormac Murphy-O’Connor

215

The Popes I have Known

Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned / 4pm / £10 Cardinal Cormac MurphyO’Connor has spent decades serving at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church, and during that time has come to know the recent Popes. Here he talks about the Popes he has known and the work they have done leading the world’s estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. He will talk about Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict and Francis. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor was born in Reading, Berkshire, in 1932, and went to study for the priesthood at the English College in Rome in 1952. After spells as a parish priest in Southampton and as private secretary to Bishop Derek Worlock, he returned to the English College in Rome as rector. In 1977 he was ordained Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, a position he held for 23 years until 2000 when he succeeded Cardinal Basil Hulme as Archbishop of Westminster. The following year, Pope John Paul appointed him a Cardinal, one of a group of the highest Church leaders whose role is to elect a new Pope and to advise the current Pope. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor took part in the conclave that elected Pope Benedict the 16th in 2005 and the Pope accepted his resignation as Archbishop in 2009 when he reached the age of 76. He was appointed Cardinal at the same time as Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, and was in Rome this year to assist at the meetings of Cardinals before the March conclave. Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned

58


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Christopher Lloyd

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER 210

What on Earth Wallbook of Science and Engineering Lower Exhibition Gallery, John Mackintosh Hall / 4pm / Free Suitable for families Popular science writer Christopher Lloyd provides his unique guide to the story of science and engineering from the Stone Ages to the present day. Lloyd’s wallbook features more than a thousand pictures and captions on a single timeline to tell its story. The reverse features a newspaper-style selection of the most significant moments in the story of human invention from Archimedes to atomic power. Lloyd is the founder of What on Earth Publishing Ltd, the company behind the What on Earth? wallbook. His books include: What on Earth Happened? and What on Earth Evolved? Lloyd’s presentations, featuring his wallbooks and his coat of many pockets, are extremely popular in schools and at literary festivals across the UK. He will be doing four events a day at the Gibraltar International Literary Festival featuring the What on Earth? books on history; science and engineering; natural history; and sport. The talks are free and suitable for children aged over six but are aimed at adults too. Lloyd’s talk on the What on Earth Wallbook of Science and Engineering will also take place at the same venue at 4pm on Sunday, October 27. Tickets are free but can be ordered for this event via the usual channels.

Sam Benady and Mary Chiappe talk to David Freeman

204

The Devil’s Tongue: The Fifth Bresciano Mystery Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 5pm / £10

Gibraltarian writers Sam Benady and Mary Chiappe talk to broadcaster David Freeman about their crime-writing partnership and launch their fifth and latest co-authored Bresciano mystery, The Devil’s Tongue. 1793. From the past comes Rogers, a man who threatens to ruin the Bresciano family. There are violent confrontations. Then a body is found in the yard of Bresciano’s warehouse: Rogers will no longer disturb their peace of mind. But it is murder most foul and the Town Major investigates. Only the people Bresciano most loves have a motive for killing Rogers. Can a desperate and fearful Bresciano prove their innocence – if they are, indeed, innocent? He uncovers what others fail to see, but will he reach the right conclusions? Benady and Chappie will talk about their commitment to historical truth and the research required to ensure historical fact is included in their novels. They will also talk about how they bring family members from the past into their stories. Benady was born in Gibraltar, where his family has lived since 1735. One of his ancestors was kidnapped by 18th-century privateers and had to be ransomed. He was appointed Gibraltar’s first full-time paediatrician in 1980 and ran the service for 20 years. Since retirement, he has devoted himself to writing. Chiappe became Gibraltar’s first woman minister at the age of 25 but she resigned her education portfolio to follow a career in teaching. She traces her family back to Sicily and Andalusia. Like Benady, she took up writing on retirement. She is a columnist on the Gibraltar Chronicle. A drinks reception follows this event to mark the launch of The Devil’s Tongue.

Sponsored by

Sponsored by

JOHN MACKINTOSH EDUCATIONAL TRUST

59


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SATURDAY 26th OCTOBER Gavin Hewitt

108

The Lost Continent: Europe’s Darkest Hour Since World War Two Cathedral of the Holy Trinity / 6pm / £10 The BBC’s Europe editor Gavin Hewitt tells the story of that pillar of the post-war European dream, a shared currency, that has led the continent into its gravest crisis since World War Two. Hewitt shows how easy money led some states into a spending binge, and when the financial crash came to the United States, Europe caught the cold in spectacular fashion, threatening the whole European project. Hewitt weaves together the stories of ordinary people with the drama and politics of Europe in crisis. He includes interviews with key officials and players and inside accounts of some of the critical meetings.

Hewitt has been BBC Europe editor since 2009, giving him a unique insight into events in Europe over the last few years. He has also worked as a special correspondent for the BBC Ten O’Clock News and Panorama, covering stories all over the world. He covered the Obama campaign in 2008 and was embedded with American forces for the invasion of Iraq. He has covered conflicts in Georgia, Lebanon and Zimbabwe and reported from New York after 9/11. He was in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and was in Berlin the night the wall fell. He is the author of two previous books, one on Terry Waite, and A Soul on Ice: A Life in News, and is the holder of an RTS, a BAFTA and a Broadcast award.

Sponsored by

60

Members of the Gibraltar Re-enactment Society


The Festival Dinner at The Convent, Gibraltar (by kind permission of His Excellency, the Governor) Saturday 26th October 2013

The menu recreates the dinner served at The Convent in 1954 on the visit to Gibraltar by Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. Sponsored by

Festival Title Sponsor Limited ticket availability. See festival website for details

Wines and food presented by Morrisons


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER Mohammed Achaari, Abdelkarim Jouaiti and Youssef Fadel

320

Voices from Morocco

Lower Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 10am / £10

Mohammed Achaari

Achaari is a poet, short story writer, novelist, and journalist, who was jailed for his political activities in the early 1980s. He has published six collections of poetry, two novels and one collection of short stories. He has served as Minister of Culture in Morocco and twice as Minister of Culture and Communications. He has also twice been elected head of the Union of Moroccan Writers.

Morocco has featured heavily in the writing of Western authors. Tangier alone has influenced many European and American authors, including Alexandre Dumas, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Paul Bowles, Tennessee Williams, William Burroughs, Patricia Highsmith, Jack Kerouac, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. But what about Moroccan writers? How do they perceive their country, and what are the themes that characterise their writing? Three Moroccan writers, Mohammed Achaari, Abdelkarim Jouaiti and Youssef Fadel, talk about their own works and discuss the influences and themes that run through them.

Youssef Fadel

Jouaiti was born in Beni Mellal, Morocco. He is a writer, researcher and translator and author of five novels. His first novel, Layl el-Shams (Night of the Sun) won Morocco’s prize for young authors. Katibat elKharab (Sabotage Platoon) was longlisted for the 2009 International prize for Arabic Fiction. Fadel was born in Casablanca in 1949. He left school at 17 and became an actor before realising his Abdelkarim Jouaiti dream of being a writer. He is a screenwriter, playwright, novelist and essayist. His novels include Celestina; Haschisch, winner of the Prix Grande Atlas Maroc 2001; and Mitrou mouhal. His writing led him to two spells in prison in the 1970s. Writer and film-maker Tahir Shah, a resident of Morocco, introduces his first novel , Casablanca Blues, in an event that follows this one. Note: This event is in Arabic – English translation will be provided

68


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER

D J Taylor

301

Christopher Lloyd

309

What on Earth? Wallbook of Natural History

The Windsor Faction Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 10am / £10 Acclaimed writer and biographer D J Taylor looks at what might have happened at the outbreak of World War II if events had panned out differently. In his new novel, The Windsor Faction, Taylor imagines that Wallis Simpson had died in 1936 and that a heartbroken Edward VIII had remained on the throne. There is an influential faction in the country that wants to pull out of the war and negotiate a peace, and the different sides vie for the King’s ear. Into this walks Cynthia, returning to London society from Ceylon. She falls for an American with shadowy allegiances and finds herself at the heart of the struggle and facing a decision about whose side she is on. Taylor is a biographer and novelist. His works include biographies of Thackeray and Orwell – winner of the 2003 Whitbread Biography Prize – and nine novels including Derby Day – longlisted for the Booker; At the Chime of a City Clock; Ask Alice; and Kept: A Victorian Mystery. He is also a well known critic and reviewer, and his other books include A Vain Conceit: British Fiction in the 1980s and After the War: the Novel and England since 1945. He discusses parody with Guardian journalist and writer John Crace at a separate event and also delivers the festival’s Chesterton Lecture.

Lower Exhibition Gallery, John Mackintosh Hall / 10am / Free Suitable for families Popular science writer Christopher Lloyd tells the complete story of natural history in 1,000 species on a 2.3-metre timeline beginning with the formation of the Earth to the latest breakthroughs in evolutionary science. The unique illustrations link subjects together from algae to asteroids, and streams of colour represent key themes, including the land, sea and sky. Lloyd is the founder of What on Earth Publishing Ltd, the company behind the What on Earth? wallbook. His books include: What on Earth Happened? and What on Earth Evolved? Lloyd’s presentations, featuring his wallbooks and his coat of many pockets, are extremely popular in schools and at literary festivals across the UK. He will be doing four events a day at the Gibraltar International Literary Festival featuring the What on Earth? books on history; science and engineering; natural history; and sport. The talks are free and suitable for children aged over six but are also aimed at adults. Lloyd’s talk on the What on Earth? Wallbook of Natural History will also take place at the same venue at 10am on Saturday, October 26. Tickets are free but can be ordered for this event via the usual channels.

Sponsored by

Sponsored by JOHN MACKINTOSH EDUCATIONAL TRUST

69


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER Diarmaid MacCulloch

316

Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700 The Convent / 10am / £10 One of Britain’s leading historians Professor Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch talks about his definitive account of the Reformation, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700, which is about to be published in a new Folio Society edition. He recreates the religious battles of the priests, monarchs, scholars and politicians, from the zealous Luther to the radical Loyola, from tortured Cranmer to the ambitious Philip II. The story ranges from Europe to the New World and MacCulloch uncovers how the upheaval affected people’s lives and overturned ideas of love, sex, death and the supernatural, paving the way for the modern age. MacCulloch is one of the leading historians of Christianity and the Church. He is professor of the history of the church at the University of Oxford and an acclaimed author and broadcaster. He is particularly known for his 2009 BBC TV series and book, A History of Christianity. MacCulloch’s other works include Thomas Cranmer, winner of the Whitbread Biography Award, the James Tait Black prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. A History of Christianity won the Cundill Prize, the world’s largest history prize. His most recent television series, How God Made the English, was broadcast in March 2012. He appears at another festival event to talk about his recent book, Silence in Christianity, a look at the many forms of silence from prayer and mystical contemplation to shame, evasion and purposeful forgetting.

In association with

The Convent, the residence of His Excellency The Governor

70


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Cormac Murphy-O’Connor

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER 311

Festival Mass

Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned / 10.30am / Free

Tahir Shah

306

Casablanca Blues Lower Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 12 noon / £10 Writer and film-maker Tahir Shah introduces his new novel, Casablanca Blues. It follows 30something New Yorker Blaine Williams, in a mid-life crisis and obsessed by the movie Casablanca. His world is collapsing around him, so he flees to the one place he thinks he knows and understands. However, the real Casablanca is a place of danger, intrigue, and true love — and nothing is what it seems.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor leads the festival mass at the Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor succeeded Cardinal Basil Hulme as Archbishop of Westminster in 2000. The following year, Pope John Paul appointed him a Cardinal, one of a group of the highest Church leaders whose role is to elect a new Pope and to advise the current Pope. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor took part in the conclave that elected Pope Benedict the 16th in 2005 and the Pope accepted his resignation as Archbishop in 2009 when he reached the age of 76. He was appointed Cardinal at the same time as Cardinal Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, and was in Rome this year to assist at the meetings of Cardinals before the March conclave. He speaks at another festival event about the Popes he has known.

Shah is author of 15 books, most of which are about outlandish journeys through Africa, Asia and the Americas. They include The Caliph’s House: A year in Casablanca, a Time Magazine top-ten book of the year; In Arabian Nights, a look at how stories are used in cultures such as Morocco; and Travels with Myself, a collection of reportage including the stories of a woman on Death Row in America and of an encounter in a Pakistani torture jail. He has written one other novel, Timbuctoo. Shah also makes documentary films. His latest, Lost Treasure of Afghanistan, was screened in Britain and across the world. Other documentaries include House of the Tiger King, Search for the Lost City of Gold, and The Search for King Solomon’s Mines. Shah lives in Casablanca and is brother of the journalist, film-maker and writer Saira Shah, who appears at the festival to talk about her debut novel.

71


SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER

www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Claudia Roden talks to Donald Sloan

317

A Recipe for Life

The Convent / 12 noon / £10 Claudia Roden talks to the head of Oxford Gastronomica Donald Sloan about her life and her work as one of the most influential food and cookery writers of her generation. Roden was born and brought up in Cairo and was first drawn to food as a painter. Her bestselling A Book of Middle Eastern Food revolutionised attitudes to the cuisine of the Middle East when it was published in 1968. Her work has always been characterised by a particular interest in the social and historical background to the food she is writing about and has received great critical acclaim. Other works include Mediterranean Cookery with Claudia Roden; The Food of Italy; The Book of Jewish Food; Coffee; and Arabesque: Sumptuous Food from Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon. Her most recent book is The Food of Spain, a definitive look at the country’s food and recipes which she spent five years researching. As with her previous works, Roden examines the different regions, the history and the culture of Spain, and shows how they are all brought together by the delicious food and recipes passed down through the generations. Roden is winner of many awards, including six Glenfiddich awards, two Andre Simon awards, four World Gourmand awards, the James Beard Best Cookbook of the Year award in the USA, and the National Jewish Book Award in the USA. She has devised a special menu for the festival closing dinner. Sloan is head of the Oxford School of Hospitality Management at Oxford Brookes University and chair of Oxford Gastronomica, a specialist centre for the study of food, drink and culture, that works to enhance our relationship with food and drink, and to celebrate their place in our lives.

Sponsored by

Presented by

72


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Christopher Lloyd

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER 308

What on Earth? Wallbook of History Lower Exhibition Gallery, John Mackintosh Hall / 12 noon / Free Suitable for families Popular science writer Christopher Lloyd tells the story of millions of years of human evolution, including the rise and fall of civilisations, the top battles the world has seen, and the life of the planet from the Big Bang to the present day. Lloyd’s wallbook features more than a thousand hand-drawn illustrations and chronicles every major event in natural and human history. Lloyd is the founder of What on Earth Publishing Ltd, the company behind the What on Earth? wallbook. His books include: What on Earth Happened? and What on Earth Evolved? Lloyd’s presentations, featuring his wallbooks and his coat of many pockets, are extremely popular in schools and at literary festivals across the UK. He will be doing four events a day at the Gibraltar International Literary Festival featuring the What on Earth? books on history; science and engineering; natural history; and sport. The talks are free and suitable for children aged over six but are also aimed at adults. Lloyd’s talk on the What on Earth? Wallbook of History will also take place at the same venue at 12 noon on Saturday, October 26. Tickets are free but can be ordered for this event via the usual channels.

Sponsored by JOHN MACKINTOSH EDUCATIONAL TRUST

Kevin Crossley-Holland and Mercedes Aguirre Chaired by Paul Blezard

312

Myths and Legends and What They Tell Us About Life

Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 12 noon / £10 An English writer and a Spanish writer and academic, who have both delved deep into the world of myths and legends for their work, join forces to discuss Greek, Norse and Basque myths and legends, the importance of storytelling and what these tales can tell us about our lives. Award-winning children’s writer, poet and translator Kevin Crossley-Holland has translated Beowulf from the Anglo-Saxon and has published retellings of traditional tales including The Penguin Book of Norse Myths and British Folk Tales. He won the Carnegie Medal in 1985 for Storm and was shortlisted for the 2008 Carnegie Medal for Gatty’s Tale. He is also author of the Arthur trilogy, The Seeing Stone, King of the Middle March, and At the Crossing Places. The trilogy, set in medieval times, blends the story of young Arthur de Caldicot with the tales and exploits of his legendary namesake King Arthur. The Seeing Stone won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, the Smarties Prize Bronze Medal, and the Tir na n-Og Award. He appears at one of the festival’s school events to talk about the Arthur trilogy. Mercedes Aguirre is an academic specialising in Greek mythology and literature and a writer of fiction, of retellings of Greek myths and legends, and of stories inspired by Greek myths. She is a lecturer at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid and a visiting fellow at the University of Bristol. She is co-author of a series of books that retell the Greek myths and of one that retells Basque myths. She has also written fiction inspired by Greek myth including Nuestros mitos de cada dia, Mythical Tales of the Everyday World, shortlisted in the I Literary Prize Éride Ediciones; and El narrador de cuentos. She appears at another festival event to discuss, in Spanish, her new novel El cuadro inacabado. 73


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER Christopher Lloyd

310

What on Earth? Wallbook of Sport Lower Exhibition Gallery, John Mackintosh Hall / 2pm / free Suitable for families

Mary-Jo Jacobi

318

Gibraltar in the Global Economy Lower Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 2pm / £10

Popular science writer Christopher Lloyd tells the story of sport from the first Olympics in 776BC to London 2012. Along the way he covers hundreds of top sporting moments. Which ancient Olympic superstar was eaten by wolves? Who was the most notorious cheat in the world of Roman chariot racing? What’s the worst ever round of golf in a professional tournament? Who is regarded as the first billionaire in modern sport? Lloyd is the founder of What on Earth Publishing Ltd, the company behind the What on Earth? wallbook. His books include: What on Earth Happened? and What on Earth Evolved? Lloyd’s presentations, featuring his wallbooks and his coat of many pockets, are extremely popular in schools and at literary festivals across the UK. He will be doing four events a day at the Gibraltar International Literary Festival featuring the What on Earth? books on history; science and engineering; natural history; and sport. The talks are free and suitable for children aged over six but are also aimed at adults. Lloyd’s talk on the What on Earth? Wallbook of Sport will also take place at the same venue at 2pm on Saturday, October 26.. Tickets are free but can be ordered for this event via the usual channels.

Leading businesswoman and advisor to two US Presidents Mary Jo Jacobi talks about communications and finance in the global economy. Jacobi has worked at the highest levels of the private and public sectors in both the United Kingdom and the United States. She is a renowned public speaker and international commentator and brings a unique perspective on the workings of the global economy. In particular, she will talk about where Gibraltar sits in the world and its role in key business sectors such as financial services, internet gambling, shipping and tourism. Jacobi was Assistant US Secretary of Commerce under George H W Bush and a special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. She is a member of the UK Advisory Committee on Business Appointments. Her past business roles include executive vice president of BP America, vice president of Royal Dutch Shell, managing director of Lehman Brothers, advisor to the board of HSBC Holdings, and senior vice president of Drexel Burnham Lambert. She also held public affairs positions with 3M, the National Association of Manufacturers and El Paso Natural Gas Company.

Sponsored by JOHN MACKINTOSH EDUCATIONAL TRUST

80

Sponsored by


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER

Fernando Pérez Sanjuán, Carmen Cordero Amores and Victor José Maicas Safont. Chaired by Robbert Bosschart

312

Voices from Spain

Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 2pm / £10 Three Spanish writers join forces to discuss the themes running through their work. Fernando Pérez Sanjuán, Carmen Cordero Amores and Victor José Maicas Safont write about such themes as love, loss, loneliness and memory, all ones common to humanity and that override the arguments and conflicts between nations and peoples that dominate our headlines. Sanjuán is a Madrid-born painter and sculptor whose work has been distributed in many countries and who is the author of textbooks on drawing. He recently published his first novel, Gemelos, with its themes of weakness, hatred, love, fear, struggle, friendship, achievement, failure, conformism, non-conformism and revenge. Amores worked for the United Nations for seven years and lived in Montreal, Canada, where she founded with friends a Spanish cultural centre and began writing. She has published short stories, two children’s books and written on human rights. Donde de la vuelta el viento is a collection of short stories on the themes of passion, love, heartbreak, pain, disappointment and tragedy.

Fernando Pérez Sanjuán

Carmen Cordero Amores

Victor José Maicas Safont

Robbert Bosschart

Safont was born in the city of Castellón and is a commercial agent who has travelled the world discovering the cultures and thinking of other people. His desire for a better and more caring world led him to write his first novel, La playa de Rebeca. It is a love story that takes the reader to different parts of the world where the reality of life is far different to home. It is a world of selfishness and insecurity but one that also offers a message of hope and optimism.

Note: This event is in Spanish – English translation will be provided

81


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER Kate Adie

304

Fighting on the Home Front: The Legacy of Women in World War One King’s Chapel / 2pm / £10 Photo: Ken Lennox

Kate Adie is one of the best-known journalists of the last few decades. As the BBC’s chief news correspondent, she was one of the most familiar faces on television. Her work took her to some of the world’s biggest troublespots, reporting from both Gulf wars, the Balkans conflict, the Free Enterprise disaster in Zeebrugge, the Dunblane Massacre and the Hatfield rail crash.

Adie talks about her new book, Fighting on the Home Front, the story of World War I through the eyes of women and of how hard it was for women to be admitted into the world of men. Adie recounts how attitudes began to change during the war, how women began to take on men’s work, hemlines rose, women dined in public without men, and the grille separating women from the House of Commons was taken out. Adie shows how time and again women proved up to the tasks they had thus far been considered incapable of, from working on the front line to driving ambulances and trams, performing surgery and mending roads, and even playing football to full stadiums. Adie was appointed the BBC’s chief news correspondent in 1989. She has won many awards including three Royal Television Society awards, the Bafta Richard Dimbleby Award, and the Broadcasting Press Guild’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting. She was awarded an OBE in 1993. She presents From Our Own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4 and is author of four bestselling books.

Sponsored by

82


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

David Crystal

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER 319

The Future of Englishes The Convent / 2pm / £10

John Crace

302

Harry’s Games: Inside the Mind of Football Managers Upper Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 4pm / £10

World-renowned writer on the English language David Crystal talks about what the future holds for the language. English is now a global language, but what are the consequences of that for its future development? Crystal will take a look at the statistics, explain the historical reasons for English’s global position, and explain the trends that are already affecting the development of English world-wide.

Writer and Guardian journalist John Crace takes a sideways look at the different styles of football management. Crace, who writes the Digested Reads – pastiches of popular writers – for the paper, draws on a lifetime of watching football and supporting Tottenham Hotspur to delve into the mind of the football manager. He is also the author of two sports books, Harry’s Games: Inside the Mind of Harry Redknapp and Vertigo: One Football Fan’s Fear of Success. Harry’s Games is the biography of Queen’s Park Rangers and former Tottenham, Portsmouth and Southampton manager, Harry Redknapp. Seen as a tactical genius in some quarters and as a clown in others, Crace asks how he could at one time be tipped as an England manager while at the same time be facing court proceedings for tax evasion, charges he was eventually cleared of. Vertigo is an hilarious take on the life of an obsessive football fan whose team always disappoints. Crace has supported Spurs for 40 years, mostly of underachievement. The recent upturn in fortunes has, however, led to a new anxiety: the fear of success.

Crystal is a writer, editor, lecturer and broadcaster on language. His recent works include A Little Book of Language and Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language. He co-authored with his wife, Hilary, Words on Words, a winner of the Wheatley Medal. The Crystals’ latest coauthored book is Wordsmiths and Warriors, in which they explore the heritage of English through the places in Britain that shaped it. They bring together the warriors, whose invasions transformed the language, with the writers, poets and scholars who created its character.

Crace is a feature writer for the Guardian who is best known for his literary pastiches, the Digested Read. He makes two other appearances at the festival to discuss parody in literature with D J Taylor and to discuss the changing attitudes to sex and marriage in literature with Professor John Sutherland. Sponsored by

David Crystal appears at a second festival event to talk to a school audience about Shakespeare’s language, and the Crystals’ actor son, Ben, will lead a school workshop on Shakespeare for the festival.

Sponsored by

83


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER Sir John Holmes talks to Roma Tearne

303

The Politics of Humanity: The Reality of Relief Aid

305

The Last Storytellers: Tales from the Heart of Morocco

King’s Chapel / 4pm / £10

Lower Reading Room, The Garrison Library / 4pm / £10

Former UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs Sir John Holmes talks to Sri Lanka-born novelist Roma Tearne about the harsh realities of supplying humanitarian aid to the world’s biggest trouble spots. Holmes was at the UN between 2007 and 2010, and his work took him to areas such as Sri Lanka, Darfur, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In The Politics of Humanity, he gives a clear account of the realities of development aid, exposing the difficulties of the job and explaining how he quickly realised that his role was to be a voice to the voiceless. He found that the UN’s humanitarian efforts were tolerated in the world’s trouble spots but often mistrusted and undermined by both sides in a conflict. Efforts were often frustrated by people working for political ends.

BBC journalist Richard Hamilton tells how he tracked down the last of Morocco’s storytellers in the labyrinth of Marrakech’s medina. Storytellers have gathered in Jemaa el Fna, the legendary square at the heart of Marrakech, for nearly a thousand years. But television, the movies and the internet have drawn people away from the ancient storytelling tradition and few now want to learn the stories and continue the legacy. This unique tradition is now on the brink of extinction. Hamilton tracked down the last of these storytellers and has recorded and retold the stories that have captivated audiences for centuries.

Holmes worked in the Foreign Office for 34 years, serving as ambassador in Paris for six years before taking on his role at the UN. He is now director of the Ditchley Foundation, which aims to advance international learning and to bring transatlantic and other experts together to discuss international issues. Tearne is an artist and novelist born in Sri Lanka. She arrived in the UK with her family at the age of 10 and vividly remembers stopping in Gibraltar on the way. She first trained as an artist and later turned to writing. Her first novel, Mosquito, was shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award. Most of her work, including her latest novel, Road to Urbino, is set against the backdrop of war-torn Sri Lanka. She will talk about her journey to the UK and her novels at a separate festival event.

Sponsored by

84

Richard Hamilton

Hamilton has worked for the BBC since 1995. He has been a correspondent in Morocco, South Africa and Madagascar and is currently the BBC World Service Africa editor. While living in Morocco, he co-authored the Time Out Guide to Marrakech. ‘The Last Storytellers succeeds brilliantly in delving down through the endless overlapping layers of Marrakech life, to reveal the extraordinary underbelly, an ancient cultural bedrock built on stories and story-telling. Through a shrewd perception of a society that can seem nothing less than baffling to the Occidental mind, Richard Hamilton has triumphed where many before him have failed.’ – Tahir Shah, author of The Caliph’s House and In Arabian Nights.


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

Christopher Lloyd

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER 307

What on Earth Wallbook of Science and Engineering Lower Exhibition Gallery, John Mackintosh Hall / 4pm / Free Suitable for families Popular science writer Christopher Lloyd provides his unique guide to the story of science and engineering from the Stone Ages to the present day. Lloyd’s wallbook features more than a thousand pictures and captions on a single timeline to tell its story. The reverse features a newspaper-style selection of the most significant moments in the story of human invention from Archimedes to atomic power. Lloyd is the founder of What on Earth Publishing Ltd, the company behind the What on Earth? wallbook. His books include: What on Earth Happened? and What on Earth Evolved? Lloyd’s presentations, featuring his wallbooks and his coat of many pockets, are extremely popular in schools and at literary festivals across the UK. He will be doing four events a day at the Gibraltar International Literary Festival featuring the What on Earth? books on history; science and engineering; natural history; and sport. The talks are free and suitable for children aged over six but are aimed at adults too. Lloyd’s talk on the What on Earth Wallbook of Science and Engineering will also take place at the same venue at 4pm on Saturday, October 26. Tickets are free but can be ordered for this event via the usual channels.

Sponsored by JOHN MACKINTOSH EDUCATIONAL TRUST

Barbary Macaques have lived on The Rock for many centuries


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

SUNDAY 27th OCTOBER Madhur Jaffrey, Ken Hom and Penny Holmes. Chaired by Donald Sloan

313

The Culture of Food: An Affirmation of Life The Convent / 4pm / £10

Three distinguished guests discuss the culture of food with the head of Oxford Gastronomica, an institute dedicated to understanding the culture of food. What is the importance of food for family, memory, peace, celebration and love, and how special a place should it have in our lives? Madhur Jaffrey is an award-winning actress and one of the world’s best-known authorities on Indian food. She first came to notice for her role as a Bollywood star in the 1965 film Shakespeare Wallah and went on to star in several Merchant Ivory films and on the stage in Broadway and the West End. An Invitation to Indian Cookery, published in 1973, was the first of many cookery books, and Jaffrey went on to star in her own BBC cookery show Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cookery. She has a new series, Madhur Jaffrey’s Curry Nation, on the Good Food Channel. She appears at two other festival events to talk about her life in film and alongside food writer and broadcaster Hardeep Singh Kohli in a spice workshop.

Ken Hom and Madhur Jaffrey

Ken Hom is one of the world’s greatest Chinese chefs and a leading world authority on Chinese food. He was recommended to the BBC by Madhur Jaffrey and went on to appear in Ken Hom’s Chinese Cookery and a number of other series. He has written more than 30 cookery books. The latest, Exploring China, A Culinary Adventure, accompanied a successful BBC2 series. Hom prepares a Chinese menu for festival-goers at a separate event. Lady Penny Holmes is a trustee of Women for Women International, which supports and educates women from war-torn countries. The charity recently published a fundraising cookbook, Share, which included recipes given by people known for their humanitarian work, such as Nelson Mandela and Alice Waters. Discussions are chaired by Donald Sloan, head of the Oxford School of Hospitality Management at Oxford Brookes University and chair of Oxford Gastronomica, a specialist centre for the study of food, drink and culture, that works to enhance our relationship with food and drink, and to celebrate their place in our lives. 86

Sponsored by

Penny Holmes

Presented by


The Festival Closing Dinner The Caleta Hotel, Catalan Bay, Gibraltar Sunday 27th October 2013

The dinner menu has been devised by Claudia Roden with dishes to reflect the Gibraltarian, Italian, Spanish, Moroccan, British and Jewish culinary traditions of the Rock. Sponsored by

Limited ticket availability. See festival website for details

Food presented by Morrisons


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER SCHOOL EVENTS

The Gibunco Gilbraltar International Literary Festival features a series of events on Friday, October 25, for invited audiences of schoolchildren. The events will take place in the John Mackintosh Hall.

Hardeep Singh Kohli introduced by Donald Sloan Indian Takeaway

Ben Crystal Springboard into Shakespeare

Broadcaster and food writer Hardeep Singh Kohli brings his Indian Takeaway to Gibraltar and invites school children to bring along some ingredients for him to cook. His Indian Takeaway, a mix of comedy, cooking and celebration of curry and the restaurants that serve it, is touring the UK this year. He will share recipe tips and stories of his Scottish and Indian heritage.

Actor and writer Ben Crystal introduces Shakespeare to an audience of school children. Crystal will talk about Shakespeare’s time and the theatre of that age, and about his writing and style. There will be opportunities for youngsters to get on their feet and get involved.

Singh Kohli is a broadcaster who was runner-up in the first series of BBC Masterchef and went on to make two series for UKTV Food and publish his first book, Indian Takeaway: A Very British Story. In Indian Takeaway, the Glasgow-born Singh Kohli sets off to find his roots in India. He has also won acclaim for his witty and engaging live cookery and chat show the Nearly Naked Chef, and followed it up with his Indian Takeaway tour, in which he is seeking the best Indian takeaway in the UK. Singh Kohli also appears at the festival with actress and cookery writer Madhur Jaffrey to discuss their love of spices and to offer some tastings. Donald Sloan, head of the Oxford School of Hospitality Management at Oxford Brookes University and chair of Oxford Gastronomica, a specialist centre for the study of food, drink and culture, that works to enhance our relationship with food and drink, and to celebrate their place in our lives, will introduce Singh Kohli and provide a commentary on the event.

88

Crystal’s acting career includes performances at London’s Globe Theatre and at the Old and Young Vic. He has also written extensively on Shakespeare. His latest series of guides, called Springboard Shakespeare, have received excellent reviews from the likes of Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench. Among them are guides to Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear and Hamlet. Crystal regularly leads school workshops on Shakespeare. He has coauthored works with his linguist father, David, including The Shakespeare Miscellany, and is sole author of Shakespeare on Toast. His father, David, appears at two festival events on language. ‘Springboard Shakespeare is the perfect tool for actors, students, theatre-goers and anyone interested in understanding Shakespeare. Ben Crystal has created guides that are a valuable and accessible way to enjoy Shakespeare’s genius.’ Kenneth Branagh


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com All school events sponsored by

SCHOOL EVENTS FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER

JOHN MACKINTOSH EDUCATIONAL TRUST

David Crystal Shakespeare’s Language

Joanne Harris The Runemarks novels

World-renowned writer on the English language David Crystal talks to a group of school children about Shakespeare’s language. The talk will include reference to texts being studied by school children in Gibraltar including Macbeth, As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest.

The acclaimed author of Chocolat Joanne Harris talks to a group of schoolchildren about her Runemarks series of novels. The novels, Runemarks and its sequel Runelight, are fantasies set in a world that is similar to ours but has been shaped by Viking invaders rather than the Romans. Harris began them as a bedtime story for her daughter and they were eventually published as children’s novels. Harris insists, however, that she is writing for all ages. Runelight sees the return of the squabbling Norse gods first encountered in Runemarks, and the introduction of a new heroine, Maggie, a girl brought up in World’s End. Maggie and Runemarks heroine Maddy are swept up into a new struggle where they each must prove where their loyalty lies.

Crystal is a writer, editor, lecturer and broadcaster on language. His recent works include A Little Book of Language and Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language. He co-authored with his wife, Hilary, Words on Words, a winner of the Wheatley Medal. The Crystals’ latest co-authored book is Warriors and Wordsmiths, a guide to the pivotal people and places connected with the English language, in which they explore the heritage of English through the places in Britain that shaped it. Crystal also appears at a second festival event to talk about the future of the English language. The Crystals’ actor son, Ben, will also lead a school workshop on Shakespeare for the festival.

Harris is the author of 13 novels. Her works have been published in more than 40 countries and have won a number of British and international awards. Chocolat was turned into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp. Her other novels include Blackberry Wine; and Five Quarters of the Orange. The novel, Peaches for Monsieur le Curé, and a new volume of short stories, A Cat, A Hat, and a Piece of String, are the subject of two separate talks at the festival.

89


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FRIDAY 25th OCTOBER SCHOOL EVENTS All school events sponsored by

JOHN MACKINTOSH EDUCATIONAL TRUST

Kevin Crossley-Holland The Arthur Trilogy and Why History Matters

Christopher Lloyd What on Earth Wallbooks

Award-winning children’s writer Kevin Crossley-Holland asks what history is and why it matters so much that many authors write historical fiction. Crossley-Holland will talk about some of the best examples of historical novelists writing for children before going on to explain his own passion for the medieval age. He will introduce his own Arthur trilogy, The Seeing Stone, King of the Middle March, and At the Crossing Places. The trilogy, set in medieval times, blends the story of young Arthur de Caldicot with the tales and exploits of his legendary namesake King Arthur.

Popular science writer Christopher Lloyd provides his unique guide to the stories of history, natural history, and sport.

Crossley-Holland will go on to talk about Gatty’s Tale, the story of a village girl and friend to Arthur de Caldicot, who sets off in Arthur’s footsteps, passing through the Straits of Gibraltar and crossing Europe, and will then introduce his two recent Viking sagas, Bracelet of Bones and Scramasax.

Lloyd is the founder of What on Earth Publishing Ltd, the company behind the What on Earth? wallbook. His books include: What on Earth Happened? and What on Earth Evolved? Lloyd’s presentations, featuring his wallbooks and his coat of many pockets, are extremely popular in schools and at literary festivals across the UK. He will also be doing four public events a day on Saturday and Sunday at the Gibraltar International Literary Festival featuring the What on Earth? books on history; science and engineering; natural history; and sport.

Crossley-Holland is a poet and multi-award-winning author. The Arthur trilogy has been translated into 25 languages. The Seeing Stone won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, the Smarties Prize Bronze Medal, and the Tir na n-Og Award. He has translated Beowulf from the Anglo-Saxon and has published retellings of traditional tales including The Penguin Book of Norse Myths and British Folk Tales. He won the Carnegie Medal in 1985 for Storm and was shortlisted for the 2008 Carnegie Medal for Gatty’s Tale.

HM Government of Gibraltar Department of Education Festival Education Partner 90


The John Mackintosh Educational Trust The John Mackintosh Trust was set up following the death of Mr. John Mackintosh in 1940. His widow, Mrs. Victoria Mackintosh, then began to implement all bequests and works that were to be carried out as stipulated in John Mackintosh’s will. These included the building of three homes for the elderly, a new wing for the hospital and the building of the John Mackintosh Hall which houses a library, theatre, meeting and conference facilities and a girls’ secondary school. John Mackintosh saw the need to foster educational links with the United Kingdom and to promote the teaching of the English language and of English history and literature. Education and specifically professional qualifications were largely the preserve of the rich; those – who like John Mackintosh’s family – could afford to send their children to private schools in England. Provision was made in the will for bursaries and grants to be given to children whose parents were resident in Gibraltar. Initially, applications were invited to enable parents to educate their children at private schools in England. With the advent of established Government Schools in Gibraltar, this evolved into supporting further and higher education and the attainment of professional qualifications for Gibraltarians. Victoria Mackintosh awarded educational scholarships from the start of the Trust, but prior to 1959 no records exist of who and how much each student received. The John Mackintosh Educational Trust was formally set up in 1972 and over the years, a total sum in excess of £1.1 million has been awarded benefitting more than 380 young Gibraltarians. The John Mackintosh Educational Trust has not only helped individuals but has awarded grants to Gibraltar’s secondary schools to help fund field trips for sixth-formers. The Royal Shakespeare Company was also sponsored when it came to Gibraltar in 1998 and contributions to sponsoring Shakespeare 4 Kidz were made in the three consecutive years to 2010. In 2012 a grant of £10,000 was made to the John Mackintosh Hall library to purchase books. The John Mackintosh Educational Trust continues to provide grants for educational purposes to this day and is very pleased to sponsor the events for children and young people at the Gibunco international Gibraltar Literary Festival 2013.

The Southport Gates were constructed in 1552 during the reign of the Emperor Charles V. The Arms of Gibraltar and the Spanish Arms are set above the gateway.

91


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

TRAVEL TO GIBRALTAR

Travel to Gibraltar By air

By sea

There are regular scheduled UK air services to Gibraltar from London Gatwick, London Heathrow, London Luton, Manchester and Birmingham, all less than three hours away.

Gibraltar is an ideal port of call for cruise ships and yachts. See http://www.gibraltarport.com/ for information about the Port of Gibraltar.

Regular flights from the UK to Gibraltar are operated by British Airways, easyJet and Monarch Airlines. Charter services can also be arranged privately. Malaga and Jerez airports are a 90-minute drive from Gibraltar, and Seville Airport is approximately two hours away by car. For further information on how to travel to Gibraltar from Malaga, Jerez or Seville please contact the Gibraltar Tourist Board.

By road Gibraltar is accessible by road from Spain. The land frontier is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and there are no limits on the number of frontier crossings you can make. There is no charge to enter Gibraltar. If you are driving to Gibraltar from Spain, take the N340 or the A7 (Cadiz – Malaga highway) and turn off at junction 119 on to the N351 which takes you to La Linea, the border town between Spain and Gibraltar. The frontier is just a five-minute walk away from La Linea Bus Station.

For more information on Gibraltar please visit www.visitgibraltar.gi Gibraltar International Airport – new terminal building

92 95


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FESTIVAL VENUES AND BOOKING INFORMATION

TON C

HUR CHI

LL A VE

EN AVE SMITH DORRI

GLAC IS RO AD

BA YS IDE

RO AD

SM IT

MAIN STREET

MAIN STREET LN MENT

LN

IRISH TOWN

IRISH TOWN

IRISH TOWN

MARKET LN

RO AD

TUCKEY’S LN

10

PARLIA

CO RR AL RD

GE ERA OP CO

GL A CIS

CASEMATES SQUARE

6

HD OR RIE NA VE

CITY MILL LN

WIN S

The festival box office is located at the Gibraltar Tourist Board Casemates Information Office, 4/5 Watergate House, Casemates Square. Monday to Friday 10am–12noon, Saturday 10am–1pm Tickets also available at: www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FISH

MAR

RD KET

RECLAMAT ION ROAD

QUEEN

SWAY EUROPORT AVE

W AT ER PO RT RO AD

LINE WALL ROAD

QUEENSW AY

BISHOP CARUANA ROAD

AD T RO POR EURO

AD RO RT PO RO U E

CRUISE TERMINAL

94


www.gibraltarliteraryfestival.com

FESTIVAL VENUES AND BOOKING INFORMATION

A Y’S L ETAR SECR

D LN

5

’S YAR

HO USE

3

S RED

S RD AND

ROAD ROSIA

T STREE MAIN

8

2

D OA LL R WA E LIN

N

COLLEGE LN

KING STREET

BO MB

L R’S NO VER GO

P RAM

T STREE MAIN

ING UALL VICTFF E LN O IC

VENT CONA E PL C

LN

ST ARY

NON

LIBR

LLO APA OP R BISH

4

RANGE TOWN

OR’S GOVERNDE PARA

C AN

KING

1

TR AFA LG AR

RD

PA RD EURO

NE

LN

QU

AY SW EEN

7 QUEENSW AY

9

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The Garrison Library (Box Office moves here on Festival days) The Convent The King’s Chapel The Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned (Roman Catholic) The Cathedral of The Holy Trinity (Anglican) Grand Battery House The King’s Bastion / leisure cinemas John Mackintosh Hall The Royal Gibraltar Yacht Club Festival box office

95


THE PROGRAMME AT A GLANCE Friday October 25th 127

10am

110 112 114 126 119 116 107 120 111

10am 10am 10am 12pm 12pm 12pm 12pm 12pm 2pm

122 115 121 124 125 101 203 109 102 113 118 207

2pm 2pm 2pm 2pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 6pm 6pm 6pm 6pm

Jennifer Ballantine Perera and Levi Attias John Sutherland and John Crace Patrick Jephson Peter Snow Jessica Harris Mercedes Aguirre Robin Hanbury-Tenison Diarmaid MacCulloch D J Taylor Leanda de Lisle and Robbert Bosschart Chaired by David Freeman Hardeep Singh Kohli and Madhur Jaffrey Rachel Hore William Chislett talks to Paul Preston Paul Mellars Joseph Garcia talks to Nicky Guerrero Alexandra Harris Rose George Joanne Harris Ben Okri Paul Preston Saira Shah talks to Roma Tearne Peter Kemp and David Grylls

Sunday 27th October The Garrison Library King’s Chapel King’s Bastion Leisure Centre The Convent King’s Chapel The Garrison Library King’s Bastion Leisure Centre The Convent The Garrison Library The Garrison Library The Convent The Garrison Library King’s Chapel King’s Bastion Leisure Centre Cathedral of the Holy Trinity King’s Chapel The Garrison Library The Convent King’s Chapel Cathedral of the Holy Trinity The Convent The Garrison Library

320

10am

Mohammed Achaari, Abdelkarim and Jouaiti Youssef Fadel

316 301 309 311

10am 10am 10am 10.30am

Diarmaid MacCulloch D J Taylor Christopher Lloyd Cormac Murphy-O’Connor

The Convent The Garrison Library John Mackintosh Hall Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned

317 306 308 312

12pm 12pm 12pm 12pm

Claudia Roden Tahir Shah Christopher Lloyd Kevin Crossley-Holland and Mercedes Aguirre

The Convent The Garrison Library John Mackintosh Hall

304 315

2pm 2pm

Kate Adie Fernando Pérez Sanjuàn, Carmen Cordero Amores and Victor José Maicas Safont

King’s Chapel

318 310 319 302 313

2pm 2pm 2pm 4pm 4pm

Mary-Jo Jacobi Christopher Lloyd David Crystal John Crace Madhur Jaffrey, Ken Hom and Penny Holmes

The Garrison Library John Mackintosh Hall The Convent The Garrison Library

303 305 307

4pm 4pm 4pm

John Holmes talks to Roma Tearne Richard Hamilton Christopher Lloyd

King’s Chapel The Garrison Library John Mackintosh Hall

The Garrison Library

The Garrison Library

The Garrison Library

The Convent

Saturday 26th October

208 212 214 210 201 211 216 217 117 206 213 218 202 209 210 215

Thomas Mogford, Jason Webster and Robert Daws 10am Norman Stone 10am Christopher Lloyd 10am Madhur Jaffrey 10am Rachel Hore 12pm Joanne Harris 12pm Christopher Lloyd 12pm Nhean Haynes de Domecq 12.30pm Ken Hom 2pm Roma Tearne 2pm William Chislett 2pm Christopher Lloyd 2pm D J Taylor and John Crace 4pm Josh Shoemake 4pm Sanford Allen 4pm Christopher Lloyd 4pm Cormac Murphy-O’Connor

204 108

5pm 6pm

205

96

10am

Sam Benady and Mary Chiappe Gavin Hewitt

The Garrison Library King’s Chapel John Mackintosh Hall King’s Bastion Leisure Centre The Garrison Library King’s Chapel John Mackintosh Hall The Garrison Library Yacht Club The Garrison Library King’s Chapel John Mackintosh Hall The Garrison Library The Garrison Library King’s Chapel John Mackintosh Hall Cathedral of St Mary the Crowned The Garrison Library Cathedral of the Holy Trinity

The Tower of Homage, Gibraltar’s Moorish castle


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.