Language is the defining feature of our humanity. It separates us from all other life on the planet. Language allows us to communicate the complex experience of our existence with deftness and subtlety. The written form allows communication to transcend time, so we can reach backwards into history and forward into the future. A writers’ festival not only celebrates our common humanity but defines us as a society in time and place.
The Brisbane Writers Festival is more than a Festival for writers, it’s for everyone who reads. From the world’s headlines, climate change, China or the US Elections, BWF is an event that has meaning and relevance to every single one of us, in every aspect of our lives. This year, there are strong personal voices emanating from the pages of the Festival’s books.
The 2008 festival will bring together approximately 220 writers from around the world including some of the world’s leading authors including the winners of some of the world’s most prestigious literary awards including the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize as well as the winners of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award and the Miles Franklin Literary Award.
We welcome many fine writers including, for the first time to Australia,Yann Martel (Life of Pi), the winner of the Reuters Foundation Best Environmental Reporter in the World, Alanna Mitchell, Lloyd Jones(Mister Pip) Kate Grenville with the world exclusive release of her new novel The Lieutenant, Robert Drewe, Simon Winchester, biographerRichard Holmes, Chris Abani, Lawrence Hill, Gwynne Dyer, the controversial James Frey, Mahvish Khan – an interpreter at Guantanamo Bay, and many more to excite, challenge and entertain you.