Balham Literary Festival returns this
year with a striking line-up of speakers, including founder of Wahaca and 2005
MasterChef winner Thomasina Miers, distinguished neurosurgeon Henry
Marsh, former ambassador Sir Jeremy Greenstock, and Mercury-nominated
singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams. “Happy, Healthy, Home?” is this year’s
theme, and the Festival’s topical programme will explore modern living both at
home and abroad. All events will take place at The Bedford pub, an
historic landmark of London’s nightlife, where there will be a pop-up bookshop
throughout the weekend run by Festival organisers Dulwich Books.
Commenting on the Festival
programme, Susie Nicklin, owner of Dulwich Books, said: “This summer we turn our gaze to the concept
of home. How do we create a space - both within and without - that will nurture
us and enable us to thrive, rather than simply to survive? What happens when
that space is threatened by war, displacement, colonisation, annexation?
Without a sense of ease, or with disease, how can we achieve the peace that a
successful home offers?”
“We’ll
look at mental and physical health, life-enhancing activities like eating,
swimming and singing, present events for children and even prescribe books to
make you feel better. Enjoy a warm welcome, music and poetry, browse our pop-up
bookshop and relax in the cosy, shabby chic atmosphere of The Bedford, a
legendary venue and a home from home for all Balhamites.”
The broad scope of this year’s Festival
programme will offer a variety of approaches for healthy, proactive and
fulfilling living. Thomasina Miers will talk about her distinguished
career, and her fuss-free style of home cooking as presented in her new
book Home Cook. Alexandra Heminsley and Jenny
Landreth will extol the healing and liberation they have found in
swimming. Henry Marsh will look back at his life in brain
surgery, Jay Griffiths will unpick manic depression and the
pilgrimage to Spain it sent her on, and Susan Elderkin, author of The
Novel Cure, will prescribe literary remedies at her afternoon tea to audience
members who have submitted their dilemmas by email ahead of the event.
As the dust settles from the general
election, the Festival will seek a broader political perspective, and will
venture into questions of nation-building, national boundaries, and
international relations. Sir Jeremy Greenstock will discuss
with the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour his incendiary insider’s
account of Britain’s role in the Iraq War, which was banned from publication by
Jack Straw in 2005. Balham is hosting The Palestinian Festival of
Literature (Palfest), which this year has four outstanding writers
– Jeremy Harding, Rachel Holmes, Sabrina Mahfouz, and Ahdaf
Soueif – who have contributed to a powerful new anthology, This Is Not a Border. And Joshua
Jelly-Schapiro will explore the cultural and ethnic histories of
borderlands and contested islands with Kapka Kassabova and Jan
Rüger.
Families will feature prominently in
this year’s Festival programme, with an outstanding event bringing
together Howard Cunnell, Jonathan Dean and Ed Docx to
discuss fatherhood explored through their fictional and real-life accounts of
fathers and sons. Docx’s newly published Let Go My Hand is set to be one of this year’s outstanding
novels, while Cunnell’s moving memoir explores masculinity and family through
his experience having an absent father, and as a father whose daughter became
his son. Dean’s account of multi-generational family migration will speak to
the challenges modern families face. And specifically for children, there are
events with Jane Clarke’s chameleon creation Neon Leon,
and Sarah Driver, author of The
Huntress: Sea, the first book in a brand new seafaring fantasy adventure
trilogy.
Drawing on the pub’s infamous history as
the site of a Victorian murder trial, the programme will include a blockbuster
line-up of crime fiction authors- Angela Clarke, Annemarie Neary and Anna Mazzola - who all have crime novels set in South London. The event will
take place Saturday 10th June @ 1:30pm, and celebrate its legendary reputation
as the springboard for artists such as Ed Sheeran, The Clash and U2 with an
evening of songs by Mercury Prize nominated singer-songwriter Kathryn
Williams.
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