Literary fest boasts change

"We've got a stellar line-up this year," said Jenny Niven, director of the Bookworm's International Literary Festival.

The festival, which will run March 5 through 19, claims to be its most diverse in terms of both nationalities in attendance, and repertoire.

"We want to push the boundaries of what you think you'd expect at a regular literary festival," Niven said.

The 2010 festival has expanded to include spoken vocal performances and workshops by three-time national US slam winner Steve Connell and British Jamaican poet Benjamin Zephaniah.

The program will also include songwriting workshops with Canadian Indie rock artist, Julie Doiron.

Private gala dinners with authors as well as writing workshops for children will provide Beijingers and their kids a chance to interact with guests in casual setting.

To achieve this, events will take place in venues around the city and not exclusively at The Bookworm. "We've been working with Yishu 8 to host literary brunches and dinners, as well as the spoken word festival to take place at local music venue, 2 Kolegas," said Niven.

"Taking it out of The Bookworm and into other pastures."

This year's festival is also China's first "carbon-neutral" literary festival. Partnering with Climate Actio2n, The Bookworm calculated how many carbon emissions were produced to make the festival happen - from flying authors to China to cab fares and printing.

To offset those carbon emissions, donations were made to a hydro-energy project in Sichuan province that generates clean energy to central China's Power Grid.

These changes will not leave less room for their festival favorites though. Chinese experts in all fields - poetry, calligraphy, painting and politics - will be there.

So will be former New Yorker correspondent and author of Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler.

Rough Guide China writer David Leffman will be holding a travel writing workshop, historian Jonathan Fenby will lead a discussion on the role of women in Chinese society, and China food writers Lillian Chou and Jen Lin-Liu will share their experiences documenting Beijing's cuisine.

World-renowned fiction writers from around the globe, such as Dominican American 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz, Malaysian novelist Tash Aw, Indian writer Amit Chaudhuri, and Israeli novelist David Grossman will answer questions about their work and share their opinions in related panels.

The festival will also tour The Bookworm's two branches in Suzhou and Chengdu.

Tickets go on sale at The Bookworm starting last week.

(China Daily 02/08/2010 page28)