A specially selected group of 60 international literature promoters attended this year’s Bookcase, our biennial showcase of contemporary UK writing.

Running from 19 to 23 August, Bookcase 2004 comprised of elements of the Edinburgh International Book Festival programme with discussions and readings organised specifically for the promoters.

Our offices overseas nominated programmers of literary festivals, writers, journalists, critics and academics from their countries to attend the showcase and take part in our cross-cultural discussions.

One of our USA delegates, Eileen Mackevich, President and Executive Producer of the Chicago Humanities Festival, comments:

"I am interested in attending the Bookcase to learn how it is managed and marketed … to understand the reason behind the pairings of writers and their backgrounds …[and] … I would be pleased to meet authors who might be candidates to speak at the Chicago Humanities Festival."

Bookcase 2004 includes themes such as:

• East and West
• Exile and diaspora
• New writing.

Emerging authors such as Gwendoline Riley and Helen Walsh discussed their work as well as some of the more established writers including:

• Irvine Welsh
• Iain Banks
• Muriel Spark.

This year our showcase programme took on a new dimension; the international promoters were invited to a series of conversations with UK writers and also had the opportunity to consider the potential of international writers.

Amongst the international writers invited were acclaimed French author Antoine Audouard and the winner of Russia’s National Best Seller Award, Irina Denezhkina.

The last Bookcase in 2002 introduced new UK writers to worldwide audiences and was described by author A L Kennedy as:

“…an opportunity for human beings separated by geography, language and culture to meet by way of a medium which can be universal: literature.”

As a result several UK writers had their works translated into other languages or toured overseas. Examples include:

• Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting was translated into Portuguese
• Biographer Rachel Holmes travelled to the South Asian Women’s Writers conference, India
• Toby Litt was one of four UK writers to travel to China as part of the Writers’ Train Project
• Kevin Crossley-Holland toured Russian literature establishments
• Andrew O’Hagan chaired the Cambridge Seminar on Contemporary British Literature and travelled to New Zealand.

Our event was organised in partnership with the Scottish Arts Council and took place as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Contact us if you would like more information on Bookcase 2004.