Manchester Literature Festival
E-Newsletter: March 2017
We welcome Booker-winning novelist Arundhati Roy and poetry stars Ocean Vuong and Kayo Chingonyi this spring



New Event: Arundhati Roy comes to Manchester



Friday 9th June, 7:30pm (doors open 7pm)
Royal Northern College of Music
Tickets: £12/£10 concessions
Ticket & a copy of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness £28/£26
 
Manchester Literature Festival is delighted to welcome acclaimed author Arundhati Roy to the city to talk about her long-awaited second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. 

In a city cemetery, a resident unrolls a threadbare Persian carpet between two graves. On a concrete sidewalk, a baby appears suddenly, in a crib of litter. In a snowy valley, a father writes to his five-year-old daughter about the number of people that attended her funeral. A lone woman chain-smokes as she reads through her old notebooks. Through a rich cast of characters, the novel tells a story spanning many years and an entire subcontinent.

Twenty years ago, Roy took the literary world by storm with her excellent debut novel, The God of Small Things, the story of twins Rahel and Estha growing up in the politically turbulent state of Kerala in the 1960s. This tale of a family tragedy set against a background of social taboos, local politics and historical change received widespread critical acclaim and won the Booker prize in 1997. Since her first novel, Roy has been awarded the Sydney Peace Prize and published five books of non-fiction including The End of Imagination, Broken Republic and Capitalism: A Ghost Story. Please join us for a special evening with Arundhati Roy. 

Advance tickets are available for MLF Get Closer Members from Wednesday 29th March. Public booking will be available from 2pm Friday 31st March. Membership including advance booking for events starts at £20 a year. For more info please visit our Membership page or call Quaytickets on 0843 208 0500.
 

New Poetry with Ocean Vuong & Kayo Chingonyi




Ocean Vuong & Kayo Chingonyi
Tuesday 9th May, 7pm
International Anthony Burgess Foundation
Tickets: £8/£6 concessions 

Manchester Literature Festival is delighted to welcome two of the most promising debut poets of a generation to the city for an extraordinary evening of poetry and reflections on desire, conflict and cultural upheaval. Night Sky with Exit Wounds from young Vietnamese American poet Ocean Vuong has already won many accolades in the US and explores the most profound of subjects - love, loss and grief - with visceral passion. Zambian-born British poet Kayo Chingonyi's first full length collection, Kumukanda, features innovative and urgent meditations on race, masculinity, identity and music. The evening will be hosted by Andrew McMillan, author of the multi-award winning debut collection Physical.


Like any good son, I pull my father out
of the water, drag him by his hair

through white sand, his knuckles carving a trail
the waves rush to erase. Because the city

beyond the shore is no longer
where we left it. Because the bombed

cathedral is now a cathedral
of trees.

 - from Telemachus by Ocean Vuong


The N Word

You sly devil. Lounging in a Pinter script
or pitched from a transit van's rolled-down window;
my shadow on this unlit road, though you've been
smuggled from polite conversation. So when
a friend of a friend has you poised on his lips
you are not what he means, no call for balled fist,
since he's only signifyin(g) on the sign;
making wine from the bad blood of history.
Think of how you came into my life that day,
of leaves strewn as I had never seen them strewn,
knocking me about the head with your dark hands.

 - from calling a spade a spade by Kayo Chingonyi


Advance tickets are available for MLF Get Closer Members from Wednesday 29th March. Public booking will be available from 2pm Friday 31st March. Membership including advance booking for events starts at £20 a year. For more info please visit our Membership page or call Quaytickets on 0843 208 0500.

Now booking: Hari Kunzru with Nikesh Shukla 

      

Hari Kunzru
In Conversation with Nikesh Shukla
Thursday 25th May 2017, 6.30pm
Central Library 
Tickets £8/£6
 
Hari Kunzru first burst onto the literary scene in 2003 with his electrifying debut The Impressionist.  Kunzru's fifth novel, White Tears, tells the story of two young record collectors obsessed with an obscure blues song. It's a ghost story, a New York noir and a deeply compelling tale of suppressed history, exploitation, guilt and cultural appropriation in popular music. Hosted by author and The Good Immigrant editor Nikesh Shukla. Book tickets >
 

Read our Mohammed Hanif Commission


British Pakistani author Mohammed Hanif was commissioned by Manchester Literature Festival and Karachi Literature Festival to write a personal essay about creativity following his visit to MLF in October 2016. The piece, 'Things We Can't Say' was premiered at Karachi Literature Festival in February 2017, and is now available to read on our website. This project was supported by the British Council. Read the essay >
 

Upcoming Events From Our Friends  


An Evening with Angie Thomas

Manchester Children's Book Festival presents a rare appearance in Manchester by Angie Thomas, American author of The Hate U Give, the YA book inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement that has topped the New York Times bestseller list. Monday 10th April, 6:30pm, Waterstones Deansgate. (The event is free, but please register your interest by emailing [email protected])
 

Two Writing Competitions Open for Entries 

Manchester Metropolitan University's Manchester Writing Competition invites submissions in short fiction and poetry until 29th September 2017, and the Cathedral Poetry Prize is open for submissions of single poems on a broadly spiritual theme until 30th June 2017. Good luck!
 

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