MLF Chapter & Verse
The Manchester Literature Festival Blog
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‘Just a little language spoken down there in the mountains of Switzerland’: Arno Camenisch & Nicolai Houm Review
October 11, 2018
Centre for New Writing student, Thomas Lee, reviews one of the first events of the 2018 Festival. In the redbrick engine house at the Anthony Burgess Foundation we find Norway’s ‘Most American Author’ and one of Switzerland’s most widely translated novelists. They are both mountain men: they ski, they snowboard, they go to the mountains […]
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Review: Dorthe Nors
November 3, 2017
Our reviewer Phil Olsen enjoys a captivating talk about writing, translation and stories that ‘take place in a breath’ with Danish author Dorthe Nors. The opening Saturday of this year’s festival was a good day for fans of short stories. It was also a good day for fans of holing up in the International Anthony […]
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Review: Writing Karachi: Mohammed Hanif & Kamila Shamsie
November 1, 2016
“It is a place to get lost in, because nobody knows who you are.” Our blogger Amy McCauley heads to Whitworth Art Gallery to discover the complexities of Karachi, in the company of two authors who have called it home. The Whitworth Gallery offers a warm welcome to two novelists – Kamila Shamsie and Mohammed […]
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Review: The Whole Kahani
October 31, 2016
Festival blogger Amy McCauley headed to Whitworth Art Gallery and was moved and inspired by an afternoon of new fiction from The Whole Kahani writing collective. The question of shifting and multiple identities is one we must all negotiate in our rapidly changing world. As Reshma Ruia, founder of writing group ‘The Whole Kahani says, […]
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Review: Sungju Lee
October 21, 2016
Festival blogger Amy McCauley headed to Central Library to hear Sungju Lee read and discuss his memoir, co-written by author and journalist Susan Elizabeth McClellan, Every Falling Star. What do we imagine when we think of North Korea? Perhaps a chubby cartoon of Kim Jong-Un astride a nuclear missile; or a ‘Team America’ style caricature of Kim Jong-Il […]
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Review: Olivia Laing
October 21, 2016
‘People have lived with shame and isolation, and have succeeded, and we need to be reminded of that’: Our blogger Natalie Kane reports on our recent in-conversation event with Olivia Laing. As Manchester is falling headfirst into autumn, into darker hours with emptier trees, a warm shuffle of coated people make their way into Anthony […]
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Review: Gillian Slovo
October 21, 2016
Festival blogger Kate Woodward headed to International Anthony Burgess Foundation to learn about the author of 13 acclaimed books including the Orange-shortlisted Ice Road, Gillian Slovo, and her latest novel, Ten Days. I’m a wimp when it comes to grim news and prefer real events to be sanitised through the medium of fiction. I would never […]
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Review: Margaret Atwood
October 17, 2016
“Revisiting the play as a modern novel was one of those things that sounded like a good idea at first, before you found out it was going to be harder than you thought.” Our blogger Emily Morris was delighted by Margaret Atwood’s novel, personality and rap. Margaret Atwood is many things: amazing author, brilliant poet and a total […]
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Review: Bidisha and Gulwali Passarlay
October 22, 2015
Fran Slater is powerfully moved by an afternoon with Bidisha and refugee-turned-author Gulwali Passarlay. If there’s a timelier event taking place at this year’s festival, I’ll eat all of the hats I have ever owned. Right in the middle of an era-defining humanitarian crisis, and with the refugee debate raging across the front pages on […]
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Review: Adam Marek and Diao Dou
October 22, 2015
Young Digital Reporter Calla Randall learns that surrealism is a game with rules to follow – and occasionally break – at a jolly afternoon with writers Adam Marek and Diao Dou AIDS and the Black Death still exist. There are treatments for both, but no cure yet for AIDS. In one of my favourite Adam Marek stories set at […]