The Shanghai International Literary Festival is in full swing, with dozens of award-winning and best-selling authors in the city to speak about their latest works and share their passions. And while many of the sessions have sold out, here are four you can still snag tickets to...
Colin Barrett : Young Skins
Born in County Mayo, Ireland, Colin Barrett now lives and writes in New York and has made a truly impressive name for himself. Already a Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award winner, Guardian First Book Award winner, and a winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, Barrett is a young heavyweight on the literary scene. This year at Litfest, Barrett will be speaking about his short story collection, Young Skins, and its exploration of the grand concept of the human condition through the microcosm of local life.
Published in 2013, Young Skins is a tense, intimate portrait of rural Ireland in the wake of the collapse of the Celtic Tiger. The loud, young personalities of small town Glanbeigh jostle shoulder to should with silence and violence in the book’s pages. We to are anxious with anticipation for this evening with Barrett as he re-enter the world of Young Skins and weaves his own interpretation of post boom Ireland.
Sir Peter Crane: The Ginkgo
Sir Peter Crane has been recognised internationally for his work on the diversity of plant life, it’s origin, fossils history, current status, conservation and use. He has travelled from the United States, where he is President of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia and furthers its mission to inspire and facilitate scholarship on the uses, history and future of plants, to speak at the Shanghai Literary Festival on the topic of the enigmatic Gingko Tree.
Perhaps the world’s most distinctive tree, the Gingko is widely recognised as a ‘living fossil’. Wild Ginkgo, growing only in China, is a fascinating botanical oddity. Today, the Ginkgo is revered for it’s longevity, admired for it’s elegant leaves and prized for it’s edible nuts; it is, at once, one of the world’s most popular street trees and one of the most sought after herbal medicines. Join us for lunch this Thursday when Peter Crane will explore the evolutionary and cultural history of the rare species, moving from it’s mysterious origins to its proliferation, drastic declines and ultimate resurgence.
Michelle Dickinson: Science is Everywhere
Dr. Michele Dickinson (MNZM), creator of the character Nanogirl, author of bestselling The Kitchen Science Cookbook and co-founder of Nanogirl Labs, is visiting the Shanghai International Literary Festival on her mission to make science and engineering more accessible, friendly and engaging for all. In her Saturday morning session, Michelle will reveal that, whether cooking, crafting, playing or exploring, science is all around us; we are predicting at least a few astounding experiments.
Join the author of The Kitchen Science Cookbook, Dr. Michelle Dickinson, for an interactive talk as she proves that science doesn’t just happen in a classroom or a laboratory, but can be found everywhere and is for everyone, using the most unlikely of materials. Bring yourself or bring your children! Suitable for ages 6 to 106.
Cruz & Nathalie: New Universalisms
Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowski (WAI Architecture Think Tank) will discuss the urgent role architecture plays in battling the great challenges of the Twenty First Century. Presenting content explored in the Chinese edition of their book, Pure Hardcore Icons: A Manifesto on Pure From in Architecture, and their upcoming publication, Narrative Architecture: A Kynical Manifesto, the authors will outline several strategies that have the potential to make us rethink the ways humans relate to their built and natural environments in a world of accelerated changes, symbolical power and evolving media.
Founded in Brussels at the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis by Puerto Rican architect, artist, curator, author and theorist Cruz Garcia and French architect, artist, curator, author and poet, Nathalie Frankowski, WAI Architecture Think Tank is a studio practicing architecture from a panoramic approach. In their work, the pair travel between Lincoln, Nebraska; Rosanne, France; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and Beijing, China.
Deeply interested in asking questions about architecture’s symbolic, political, social and environmental imperatives, WAI’s work incorporates diverse media ranging from independent publications, moving images and installations, to curatorial programs and pedagogical projects, to buildings and urban planning. Their shortlisted design for the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) in Moscow, several invited competitions for art institutions in China and the design of art spaces in Beijing aim to redefine the relationship between architecture, exhibition and urban space, while several projects in post-hurricane Puerto Rico search for resilient forms of architecture in the warming tropics.
Tickets are officially on sale here. Click here for a full schedule.
Shanghai International Literary Festival, Mar 14-27. M Glam, see event listing here, buy tickets.
[Cover photo via Pexels]
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