A Dutch contemporary classical group will perform four pieces written for Ali Smith's work, while she reads from it, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. This year's festival is expanding its slate of genre-busting musical events, including staging Japanese Noh theatre at Greyfriars Kirk, one of the city's oldest religious sites.
Breaking the Traditional Formula
Jenny Niven, the festival's director, said such events break away from the traditional formula of authors sitting in tents, aiming to attract new audiences and celebrate literature's interplay with other art forms. "Books don't have to be medicine," she said.
The programme includes performances featuring Ali Smith, Kathleen Jamie, and William Dalrymple at Greyfriars, built in the early 1600s on grounds previously occupied by a 15th-century Franciscan monastery.
Scotland to the World
As part of the Scotland to the World strand, Jamie's wildlife essay On Rona, about the remote Hebridean island North Rona, will be enacted by the minimalist Noh Reimagined theatre company and Scottish musicians Brìghde Chaimbeul and Aidan O'Rourke.
The New European Ensemble (NEuE) will play four pieces written for Smith's work, while she reads from it. In The Golden Road, Dalrymple's histories of Scottish colonialism in India will accompany the fusion sounds of India Alba.
Diverse Art Forms
Niven said this approach reflects the fact that fiction and literature are routinely consumed in different ways, including film adaptations, musical interpretations, and plays. This year's festival will also offer live cookery events with food writers, a strand pioneered in 2024.
"It's a huge programme and there's absolutely space to play with different art forms," she said. The impetus also came from efforts to combat declining literacy and reading rates and competition from social media.
Previous Mixed-Genre Shows
Niven has commissioned mixed-genre shows in previous roles, including poet Benjamin Zephaniah in a hip-hop production in Beijing, and Michael Palin in a bird house at Australia's Melbourne zoo.
This year's event will feature a blockbuster appearance by thriller writer John Grisham, author of The Pelican Brief and The Firm, with Ian Rankin at the 1,000-seater McEwan Hall.
Serious Tone with 'Changing Your Mind' Theme
Niven said this year's festival has a deliberately serious tone, with "Changing your mind" as its central theme. "In a world where people are very certain of their positions about all sorts of issues, all kinds of polarised, how do we stay flexible in our thinking? How do we open our minds to new ideas, new ways of thinking?" she said.
She stressed the festival is not "deliberately pitting polarised views against each other for spectacle or for a headline." The aim is to programme authors and speakers with different views that audiences will seek out to challenge themselves.
Debates on Gender and AI
The UK supreme court ruling on the legal definition of sex will be debated in an event chaired by Brenda Hale, with legal experts Karon Monaghan KC and Keio Yoshida. The festival will also present Cory Doctorow in conversation with Jimmy Wales, while Steve Crossan will debate Alan Finkel on AI.
Digital Innovations
Niven said she is excited about competing projects from the Edinburgh fringe festival and Festivals Edinburgh to investigate new digital and data-mining technologies, which could lead to a unified festivals box office or app. She stressed protecting the book festival's identity while being open to new tools.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival runs from 15 to 30 August.
