Latest news with #HanifKureishi
The Guardian
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Edinburgh book festival to make case for hope with Hanif Kureishi and Palestinian poet
The Edinburgh book festival is to champion the positive power of hope later this summer with events involving Hanif Kureishi, the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish and an exiled Brazilian tribal leader. The core theme for this year's festival will be the 'expansive' concept of repair, and offering solutions and optimism at a time of crisis and conflict, said Jenny Niven, the event's director. 'I think it's an act of hope,' Niven said. 'Repair is a positive, optimistic approach, [and] looking at journalism, looking at politics, there are a lot of things that are broken – politically, mental health and wellbeing, societally. 'And rather than leaving people sort of worried, we're hoping that we can present new writers and thinkers who offer solutions and new ideas and great analysis that moves the conversation forward.' That strand will begin with an opening gala featuring new commissions from Darwish, Juma Xipaia, a Brazilian Indiginous leader forced into exile after she challenged government corruption, and others such as Jenni Fagan and Amitav Ghosh. Kureishi, who had a catastrophic fall that left him paralysed, will appear online with a 'very personal perspective on repair'. Niven said she was also striving to broaden the festival's appeal, both to increase its audience but also to much more accurately reflect what people read. That includes putting on the former Scotland footballer turned pundit Ally McCoist with his new autobiography Dear Scotland, and the Gavin and Stacey writer and co-star Ruth Jones, who will take part in the festival's 'Front List' strand of celebrity writers at the 1,000-seat capacity McEwan Hall. Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister, will discuss her new memoir Frankly with Kirsty Wark, originally billed as the book's launch event, though Sturgeon has since added in several talks earlier in the week, beginning with an event in Manchester. Among the 700 events in this year's edition of the festival, which before the Covid crisis laid claim to be the world's largest literature festival, will be a greatly expanded series of cookery shows, after the few it staged last year 'went gangbusters', Niven said. There will be seven cookery demonstrations at a cookery school featuring chefs such as Sabrina Ghayour offering Persian cuisine, lunch with Rosie Kellett and Spanish cookery with José Pizarro, where the audience will eat the meals they make. Tickets will be sought after: there will be 44 tickets for each, with several three-hour-long cookery events costing up to £100 a head – among the most expensive tickets of all the festivals this year. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion With the book festival now in a new and unfamiliar home on the south side of Edinburgh, in an extensively remodelled Victorian hospital now part of Edinburgh University, Niven is attempting to refashion its approach. Music, book-binding workshops and a dedicated young adult series have become mainstream events, as have more theatrical productions and specific subject themes to 'cut through all the festival noise'. Chief among those will be a recreation of the Scotch sitting room devised by the anarchic Scottish poet and writer Ivor Cutler featuring Hamish Hawk, who will present stories from his childhood and reworkings of Cutler's work, accompanied by Cutler's original harmonium. On the festival's final day the Hollywood stars Viggo Mortensen and Vanessa Redgrave will feature among a cast of celebrity speakers on stage reading from The People Speak, an anthology of famous speeches and polemics from around the world, drawn from a collection collated by the historians Anthony Arnove and Howard Zinn. The Edinburgh international book festival runs from 9 to 24 August. Tickets go on sale on 21 June.
The National
28-05-2025
- General
- The National
Zadie Smith and Hanif Kureishi among 380 writers calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza
Zadie Smith, Elif Shafak and Hanif Kureishi are among the 380 writers and organisations from the UK and Ireland that have signed an open letter denouncing Israel's war in Gaza as genocidal and urging an immediate ceasefire. The letter begins with A Star Said Yesterday, a poem by the late Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023. The poem, imagining a cosmic sanctuary, is a poignant yearning for refuge and safety amidst devastation. 'The government of Israel has renewed its assault on Gaza with unrestrained brutality,' the letter reads. 'The use of the words 'genocide' or 'acts of genocide' to describe what is happening in Gaza is no longer debated by international legal experts or human rights organizations. " Amnesty International, Medecins Sans Frontieres, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation for Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council and many other specialists and historians have clearly identified genocide or acts of genocide in Gaza, enacted by the Israel Defence Force and directed by the government of Israel.' Besides an immediate ceasefire, the letter calls for the unrestricted distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza, the release of all Israeli hostages and the liberation of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. It also urges the imposition of sanctions on Israel should these demands not be met. 'Palestinians are not the abstract victims of an abstract war,' reads the letter, which was also signed by Ian McEwan, Brian Eno, Ben Okri, Kate Mosse and Irvine Welsh. 'Too often, words have been used to justify the unjustifiable, deny the undeniable, defend the indefensible. Too often, too, the right words – the ones that mattered – have been eradicated, along with those who might have written them.' 'The term 'genocide' is not a slogan. It carries legal, political and moral responsibilities.' Israel's war on Gaza has killed at least 54,084 Palestinians and injured 123,308 since October 7, 2023, the enclave's Health Ministry said on Wednesday. Israel resumed military operations in the territory on March 18 ending a two-month ceasefire. Since then, 3,924 people have been killed.
India Today
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
Hanif Kureishi's memoir
On Boxing Day in 2022, the British-Pakistani writer Hanif Kureishi had a sudden fall while holidaying in Rome with his partner Isabella d'Amico. 'I leant forward and put my head between my legs; I woke up a few minutes later in a pool of blood, my neck in a grotesquely twisted position, Isabella on her knees beside me.'
