Snape Maltings, in west Suffolk, is the home of Aldeburgh Music, which is renowned as an outstanding year-round performance centre. On Friday evening, the Flipside Literature and Music Festival opened with “The boys from Ipanema”, by paying tribute to the composer and essayist Vincius de Moraes and the musician Antonio Carlos Jobin. They “boys” (actually…
Last year we went to Brazil and one of the highlights of the trip was the Paraty FLIP book festival. This weekend some of that glamour, joy and humour of FLIP, will be in Snape Maltings in Sufflok and I am going to bask in the experience. I received the press release this week and…
Brazil, equals, music, food, smells, passion, excitement, it has it all, including the spectacular waterfalls that make up the Iguaçu Falls. We flew internally from Manaus in the Amazon, via Sao Paulo, with Tam airlines to Foz de Iguaçu in June 2012. We were there two nights, so three days. The weather was cool, but…
Chris Keil and Jenny Grainer came to Tavira to read in the not to be missed bookshop A Lura dos Livros. Both writers have a passion for their work. Jenny writes regularly for the Algarve Resident and has written for the Portugal News. Her latest article about the recent tornado and the aftermath is…
Two writers will be reading at A Lura dos Livros at 7:30pm, on Monday 3rd December 2012. I have already publicised Chris Keil, in a previous post. Chris will be reading from his third novel “Flirting at the Funeral”. The second writer is Jenny Grainer, who will be reading from her book “Portugal and the…
CAR Hills has a love/hate relationship with Portugal and the Algarve in particular. We are very pleased that he is willing to read from some of his early essays and recent work on September 17th at Lura dos Livros in Tavira. Charles has been a writer all of his colourful life. He wrote a series…
As I write this, it is raining in Paraty. It is still beautiful, but its cold. The weather also occupied the mind of one of the writers I saw on day 5. Hanif Kureishi, (English mother, Pakistani father), grew up in Britain in the 1970’s. He said he “started writing to stop going mad”. He…
The day started with a press conference with Ian McEwan. He was his gentle mediative self and shared his love of Brazil. He first came to Brazil with his son in 2004 and his son said at the time Paraty had been the best 15 hours in Ian`s diary. His son, Gregory met a girl…
On Day 3, I attended a mix bag of sessions. The first session celebrated the poems of Drummond. In the next session Stephen Greenblatt and James Shapiro, shared their love of Shakespeare. Later in the day, Granta provided the space for two British writers to reflect on what being British means. Two Middle Eastern writers…
Trying to work in Paraty has so far been a frustrating experience. The main event last night, which was sold out many weeks ago, was not the most compelling experience I had hoped it would be, having read some good things about Paraty. I am hoping today will be better. The organisational issues for…