Tag Archive for: International Literature Festival Dublin

Hiding in Plain Sight: Mieko Kawakami & Rónán Hession | ILF Dublin 2022

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Ireland’s premier literary event – International Literature Festival Dublin (ILF Dublin) – is taking place from 19th – 29th May, bringing the world’s finest writers together to enthral, engage and excite audiences.

This year’s festival has an amazing line-up and is proud to celebrate the very best Irish and international fiction and non-fiction authors, poets, lyricists, playwrights and screenwriters. Festival strands include StoryMachine, a curated series for families and children; fringe programme Boundless; and Advance professional development events. You can explore the full festival programme here!

The world-famous International Dublin Literary Award is presented during ILF Dublin. Awarded for a novel written or translated into English, it promotes excellence in world literature. One of the richest literary prizes at €100,000, it is solely sponsored by Dublin City Council.

Among other amazing events, we would like to highlight event and discussion with two authors from different corners of the globe who share a literary eye for vulnerable, gentle characters in a hostile world.

Mieko Kawakami and Rónán Hession excel in portraying quiet individuals who are almost invisible at the centre of their own lives. Mieko’s latest work, All the Lovers in the Night, is as much about the problems of modern society in Japan as it is about the intense joys and terrors of womanhood the world over. Rónán’s long-awaited second novel, Panenka develops the warm yet uncompromising voice he is known for in the story of Joseph, a middle-aged man attempting to save his own life.

Date: Tuesday, 24 May
Time: 20:00
Venue: Merrion Square Park (Le Fanu)
Tickets: €10 / €8 – Book here!

Photo: ILF Dublin 2022

Originally from Osaka, Mieko Kawakami has just been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, for her 2021 novel Heaven. Rónán Hession is a Dublin-based writer and musician. His debut novel, Leonard and Hungry Paul was selected as the One Dublin One Book title in 2021. 

The authors will discuss their novels with chair, Martin Colthorpe, Programmer at the International Literature Festival Dublin.

‘Kawakami never evangelizes, never wags a finger. . . This is the real magic of Heaven, which shows us how to think about morality as an ongoing, dramatic activity.’ Merve Emre, New Yorker

For more information, please visit ILF Dublin website: https://ilfdublin.com/

Festival map & venue:

Off The Page: Kazuo Ishiguro in conversation

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International Literature Festival Dublin is delighted to welcome Nobel Prize winning writer Kazuo Ishiguro for an online talk to mark the publication of Klara and the Sun, his first novel since receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017.

Date: Friday, 12th March 2021
Time: 7.30 PM

Note: Tickets are priced at €25* which includes a ticket to the event and a signed hardback copy of Klara and the Sun.  If you wish to only buy a ticket for €8, please input the coupon code KLARA before purchasing your ticket. You will find this under “click to book ticket” on the top right of your screen. *Free postage within Ireland.

Klara and the Sun tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watching the humans in the store where she’s based and those on the street outside. Remaining hopeful a customer will one day choose her, Klara is warned not to invest too much in the promises of humans.

Ishiguro’s work, which includes the Booker-winning The Remains of the Day and the dystopian novel Never Let Me Go, has been translated into over fifty languages. Klara and the Sun highlights his uncanny ability to speak to the here and now, from an imaginative perspective that is all his own. Join this event to hear this exceptional writer in conversation with Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations, and to put your questions to him during the event.

Kazuo Ishiguro is a Japanese-British novelist, screenwriter and short-story writer. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1954 and moved to Britain at the age of five. His eight previous works of fiction have earned him many honors around the world, including the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Booker Prize. In 2017, the Swedish Academy awarded Ishiguro the Nobel Prize in Literature, describing him in its citation as a writer “who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”. His work has been translated into over fifty languages, and The Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go, both made into acclaimed films, have each sold more than 2 million copies. He was given a knighthood in 2018 for Services to Literature. He also holds the decorations of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star from Japan.

Event is presented by International Literature Festival Dublin in association with Faber and Faber and Eason as retail partner.

ILFDublin Writer In Residence Tomoka Shibasaki with Polly Barton

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Ireland’s premier literary event – International Literature Festival Dublin (ILFDublin) – is taking place from 17th – 26th May, gathering the finest writers in the world to debate, provoke, delight and enthral.

This year’s festival has an amazing line-up with the very best of Irish and international talent for you to meet at the readings, discussions, debates, workshops, performances and screenings across various venues.

Among other amazing events, we would like to highlight event and discussion with Tomoka Shibasaki  – Japanese writer in residence at ILFDublin 2019. From Osaka, Tomoka Shibasaki has won the Noma Literary New Face Prize and the Akutagawa Prize for ‘Spring Garden’, her first novel translated into English, which tells the story of Taro, a reclusive divorcee who is drawn into a strange relationship with the woman upstairs. The New York Times Book Review described ‘Spring Garden’ as, ‘Like a good meditation: quiet, surprising and deeply satisfying.’ Two of her works have been adapted for film.

Date: Thursday, 23 May 2019
Time: 6.15 p.m.
Venue: Smock Alley Theatre, Dublin
Tickets: €8 – €10, available online here: https://ilfdublin.ticketsolve.com/shows/873602946

Tomoka Shibasaki will be in conversation with her translator, Polly Barton, recently shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Editions essay  prize for ‘Fifty Sounds’, a record of linguistic and cultural assimilation in Japan, where she lived for seven years and became a literary translator. She was the recipient of the 2016 Kyoko Selden International Translation Prize.

Together they discuss their work and map out the territory of contemporary Japanese literature. Chaired by Martin Colthorpe, Programme Director, ILFDublin.

Presented with the support of the EU Japan Fest Japan Committee.

Full list of ILFDublin 2019 events are available here!