A NEW village green, which will include a Spiegeltent, a Waterstones bookstore and outside cafes and bars will take spring up alongside the new venue for the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
‘Future Tense’ is the theme for the festival, which will take place from August 10 – 25 in a former hospital building alongside the Meadows.
The Edinburgh Futures Institute, which opened in June, will be the new permanent home for the book festival, previously held in Edinburgh Art College and before that in Charlotte Square.
New Director Jenny Niven said: “I am enormously proud of the programme we have created for this year, our first Festival in our new home at the Edinburgh Futures Institute.
“Our programme Future Tense speaks to the complexity of the moment we’re in, but hopefully also brings some optimism – the world is full of brilliant, insightful people working in so many imaginative ways. We’re excited to showcase some of that incredible thinking and writing – and the ways people are working together to solve problems and keep learning.
“It’s been an honour to engage with authors, publicists, poets, performers, artists and audience members since I took on this role, and all of these conversations have informed what you will find on site this summer.”
Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood are among the authors to be appearing via virtual links, while new author and broadcaster Lorraine Kelly, poet Michael Rosen and festival favourites Val McDiarmid and Ian Rankin will be attending in person.
The festival programme also includes a walking tour, in which participants will use their smartphones to watch dramatised scenes from James Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner, which is set in Edinburgh and which celebrates its 200th anniversary this year.
The full programme, which is available now, features more than 500 events, with authors from more than 40 different countries.
It includes events for children, cooking demonstrations, workshops, musical events and political discussions as well as giving readers the chance to come face to face with their favourite authors.
