Edinburgh International Book Festival

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The Edinburgh International Book Festival is a book festival that takes place in the last three weeks in August (coinciding with the general Edinburgh Festival) in Charlotte Square, in the centre of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is usually attended by many notable authors, amongst others J. K. Rowling and Irvine Welsh.

The inaugural Book Festival was in 1983 and played host to just 30 Meet The Author events. Biennial at first, the Book Festival became a yearly celebration in 1997. Today, the Edinburgh International Book Festival programmes over 600 events for people of all ages and is a potent magnet for publishers, the media, agents and others, as well as ever growing numbers of the general public.

In 2001 Catherine Lockerbie, the Book Festival's fifth director, took the Festival to a new level by developing a high profile debates and discussions series that is now one of the Festival's hallmarks. Each year writers from all over the world gather to become part of this unique forum in which audience and author meet to exchange thoughts and opinions on some of the world's most pressing issues.

Running alongside the general programme is the highly regarded Children's programme, which has grown to become a leading showcase for children's authors and illustrators. Incorporating workshops, storytelling, panel discussions, author events and book signings, the Children's programme is popular with both the public and schools alike and now ranks as the world's premier books and reading event for young people. The Children's programme regularly attracts authors such as Jacqueline Wilson, Joan Lingard, Charlie Higson and Anne Fine.

Some facts about the Edinburgh International Book Festival:

There have been five directors of the Book Festival, all female.

The Book Festival sells over 60,000 books in their Bookshops in 3 weeks - what one medium sized bookshop will sell in one year!

One of the first journalists to cover the Book Festival was the young Ian Rankin, writing for a student newspaper.

Nobel Prize winners that have appeared at the Book Festival include Toni Morrison, Seamus Heaney, Dario Fo, and Harold Pinter.

Among authors who have been to the Book Festival long before they became internationally famous are Salman Rushdie, Michael Ondaatje, Kazuo Ishiguro and J. K. Rowling.

[edit] Criticism

The book festival is not without its critics. In particular, there has also arisen a "Book Festival Fringe", inspired by the Edinburgh Festival Fringe which runs concurrently. Amongst other things, in 2006, they ran a series of daily events called "Thirsty Lunch", which promoted itself as a cheap non-establishment alternative.