Swedish Writers at EIBF, 2009

See Swedish Book Review 2009:1, p.92, for details of Swedish writers at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 15-31 August this year. I'm not a betting man, but I'd wager that Henning Mankell will get the biggest audience. They'd better hold that event in an extra big tent. I might take the opportunity to say hello to Per Wästberg, for whom I did some translation jobs in the past, and whom I have only met once before - also in Edinburgh - at an International PEN conference some years ago.

The EIBF is my favourite among the many festivals (International, Fringe, jazz, TV ...) that clog up Edinburgh's streets and venues in the late summer/early autumn. It's the only time in the year when Charlotte Square garden in the west end is open to the public, and the civilised susurration of thousands of bookworms in that charming Georgian setting makes a welcome contrast to the maelstrom of the Royal Mile where Fringe "performers" and assorted mountebanks and flyer-wielding students determined to shanghai you into their show impede your passage.

Entry to the garden is free, and there's no pressure to buy a ticket for any of the events with big-name writers. I've spoken myself in the past and introduced speakers on behalf of Scottish PEN, but now I prefer to just amble in with the rest of the hoi polloi, browse the publishers' stalls in the book tents, and sit outside with a beer and a sandwich. Or inside, if it's that kind of summer.

Harry