“Cúirt is a city and county festival. Nobody owns it. We are the temporary custodians to ensure it’s healthy and thrives before the next people take over,” said programme director Maeve Mulrennan at the launch of the programme for the 32nd annual Cúirt festival of literature which will run from April 23-30 in venues across Galway.
Cúirt 2017, which was launched at the City’s House Hotel on Tuesday night, will feature readings in poetry and fiction, book launches, concerts, workshops for adults and young people, and exhibitions with a literary theme.
Highlights include readings from English poet and novelist Simon Armitage who will team up with American poet Terrance Hayes on April 29 in the City’s Town Hall Theatre. Novelists Eimear McBride, John Boyne, Sara Baume, Kit de Waal, Damon Galgut and A.L. Kennedy will also be taking part in the Festival.
So, too, are crime novelists Sophie Hannah and Denise Mina. Hannah’s psychological thrillers have been published in 32 languages across 52 territories, but Agatha Christie fans might know her best for The Monogram Murder and Closed Casket. These new Hercule Poirot novels, published with the blessing of the Agatha Christie estate, have won Hannah new readers worldwide.
Literature with a scientific and environmental angle will be in the spotlight in An Taibhdhearc on April 29, when Loughrea resident Paul Kingsnorth – whose debut novel, The Wake, was long-listed for the 2014 Booker Prize and won that year’s Gordon Burn Prize – will read. Paul, who is also a poet and non-fiction writer is the co-founder of The Dark Mountain Project, “a global network of writers, artists and thinkers in search of stories for a world on the brink”.
There’s a strong focus on local writers throughout, with readings from Elaine Feeney, whose new poetry collection, Rise, will be launched during Cúirt. The Sacrificial Wind, a spoken-word poetry event directed by Max Hafler and featuring Michael Irwin, Catherine Denning and Orla Tubridy, will be performed at the Town Hall Studio from April 25-28.
Fermata, published by Connemara company Artisan House, a celebration of writings inspired by music, is edited by Galway based poet Eva Bourke and Leitrim poet and broadcaster Vincent Woods. They will host an event, on April 30, with featured poets, including Moya Cannon, Louis de Paor and Matthew Sweeny.
Local novelists Claire-Louise Bennett and Alan McMonagle and poets Mary O’Malley and Kevin Higgins are all taking part this year.
Meanwhile, the late Dermot Healy, a Cúirt stalwart, will be remembered with an event featuring contributors to last year’s anthology, Dermot Healy: Writing the Sky.
When it comes to the Cúirt Labs, Maeve Mulrennan had no doubts. This series of workshops, talks and performances for children and teenagers involves primary and secondary schools throughout Galway. Participants will work with writers and theatre companies including Branar and Fibín.
“I’m biased and I think they are the best thing ever,” Maeve Mulrennan said of the Labs, “bringing in young people and letting them hang out with writers and not just young people’s writers.”
This year, for the first time there will be Labs as Gaeilge. Cúirt is also working closely with the City and County libraries as well as with the libraries at NUIG and GMIT.
The Kitchen Reading series, in which writers give reading in people’s homes, returns, while the annual Anne Kennedy Memorial Lecture has been changed to the Ann Kennedy Writers’ Salon and Residency, an afternoon of poetry readings and audience participation. Poems for Patience will be launched at UHG on April 28, while a plaque of Paul Durcan’s poem, The One-Armed Crucifixion, illustrated by John Behan, will be unveiled on the corner of Grattan Road and the New Prom on April 26.
Singers taking part include Seán Tyrrell, Lasairfhíona Ní Chonoala, Sive and My Fellow Sponges, while a celebration of Irish-language writer Caitlín Maude will take place in Ionad Culthúrtha an Phiarsaigh, Rosmuc, on April 27.
More information at cuirt.ie.
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