Highlights of Cúirt International Literature Festival 2022

OLIVIA LAING, LOUISE KENNEDY, SARA BAUME, THE AISLINGS, COLIN BARRETT, ROGER ROBINSON, EDEL COFFEY, RUMAN ALAM, RAYMOND ANTROBUS

These are just some of the highlights of Cúirt International Literature Festival 2022.

Running from 4th to 10th April 2022, this year’s festival promises its usual illuminating, interactive & innovative presentation of the very best in contemporary literature. For nearly 40 years the community of Galway has come together with visiting writers to create a unique festival. This year’s theme is ‘At The Intersections’ looking at life and writing as we intersect between the last 2 years and continuing world events.

This year, Cúirt is committed to making sure as many people as possible are able to enjoy the festival, and will be introducing a ‘Pay What You Can’ model for all in-person events

Events will be offered at four price tiers – €5, €10, €15 and €20 – and when buying a ticket, audiences can simply pick the amount that they can best afford. The festival still relies on box office income for vital support, however is it the hope this will give a greater number of people the flexibility to attend the festival!

Cúirt Director, Sasha de Buyl, said of the programme:

‘We are extremely excited to welcome audiences back to Cúirt and to the venues, bookshops, pubs and streets of Galway in 2022.

For the past two years, books and words have been a source of connection, comfort and escape for many of us. Though we may all come to a book from vastly different starting points, the shared experience of reading brings us closer together.

This year’s programme draws on the rich seam of stories and talent to be found at the intersections of our contemporary world. As such, this point of both connection and difference – ‘At the Intersections’ – will serve as a theme for the festival.

We are hopeful to be entering a time when people can come together more easily, to celebrate and enjoy the power of words in person. A huge part of what makes a book festival special is the connections we make; the snatched conversations as you head into a reading, the debrief in the bar about the best event of the day, the unexpected meeting of a favourite writer. 

We hope that Cúirt in 2022 can bring some of this much needed joy and conversation back to Galway. It’s an excellent reason to (finally) leave the house.’

Workshops, readings, discussions, launches, conversations on craft, careers in writing, international authors, events as Gaeilge, poetry trails, in person and online events will lead audiences this year to Galway City. Cúirt is unmatched in its diverse range from Poetry to interpreting text through music, Prose to Discussions with a large cast of Irish &  International writers. 

The early part of the week’s events will showcase events dealing with the more practical side of being a writer. The hugely popular Conversations on Craft online event series returns, this time pairing together the international writing talents Olivia Laing and Claudia Rankine with Irish writers. Laing will discuss her craft with essayist Brian Dillon, and Claudia Rankine will delve into poetic expression with Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi. 

An afternoon of professional development events for writers will exercise the formal muscles of writers at every stage of their development. Includes Starting Stanza: Building a Poetry Career and Making your Debut: Novel Writers’ Forum. 

We have discussions like Writing and Survival with Natasha Brown & Rebecca Watson/ Heroes and Villains: A.K. Blakemore & Jan Carson on the Power of the Mob / Stephanie Phillips on Why Solange Matters / Poets Gail McConnell and Raymond Antrobus on parenthood and The Transgender Issue with Shon Faye.

Fiction & Poetry readings with Colin Barrett, Wendy Erskine, Edel Coffey, Gail McConnell and Jay Bernard. 

We’re very excited  to welcome to the Cúirt centre stage two award-winning poets who have changed the shape of poetry in Britain. Roger Robinson was the first Black British poet to win the 2019 T.S. Eliot prize for his collection A Portable Paradise. Raymond Antrobus was the first poet to win the Rathbone Folio Prize, and his stunning combination of skills as a performer and literary craftsman have seen his two most recent collections, The Perseverance  and All The Names Given, win a host of awards. 

Launches of the exciting new novel by Sara Baume, Seven Steeples, Danny Denton’s much anticipated All Along the Echo and this year’s Poems for Patience introduced by Moya Cannon in University College Hospital, Galway. 

International bestseller and author of The Hunting Party , Lucy Foley returns to her Connemara roots and makes her Cúirt debut to discuss her new novel The Paris Apartment. 

Events as Gaeilge include An Chartlann Bheo: Animating the Archive of Tomás Ó Máille and readings with Réaltán Ní Leannáin agus Tadhg Mac Dhonnagáin, as well as the first event for the landmark new anthology of Irish language poetry Cnámh agus Smíor,  featuring readings from Alan Titley, Ola Majekodunmi and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

Ancillary events include a series of book to screen adaptations showing at Palás, a zine fair for small presses at the Cornstore and late-night spoken word at the festival club at Carroll’s Bar. A strand of events will be livestreamed online for those who may not feel able to be in crowded spaces.

For the full programme, please log on to www.cuirt.ie