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George R R Martin and Haruki Murakami [pictured] will appear at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival.
The festival will run from 9th-25th August in Charlotte Square Gardens, Edinburgh, with more than 900 people from 47 different countries due to take part.
Festival director Nick Barley said: "I think the queues for Martin's book signing will be stretching halfway across Edinburgh." He added: “The stars have come into alignment for this year's event – we've got the big names, and the emerging writers who will be the stars of the future." Martin is expected to discuss the latest developments in "Game of Thrones", the TV show based on his bestselling A Song of Ice and Fire books (Harper Voyager).
Murakami will be there to reveal the English translation of his Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, which will be published by Knopf on 12th August.
There will also be book launches from Sarah Waters, for her novel The Paying Guests (Virago) set in 1922 out on 28th August, Marin Amis, who will launch his new novel, The Zone of Interest (Jonathan Cape), a dark love story set in a concentration camp which is due out on 28th August, and Will Self, whose latest, Shark (Grove Press), is coming out in November. Pakistani schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai will appear as part of the festival's schools programme and it will be American short-story writer Lydia Davis’ visit to the UK since winning the £60,000 Man Booker International prize.
Other major names due to take part in events include Jung Chang and Richard Dawkins, who recently made headlines for his comments about fairytales.
Michael Rosen and Ali Smith will address the importance of books and words respectively, while Viv Albertine will reminisce about her punk career. Writer Raja Shehadeh is to chair a series of events on the Middle East. Kate Adie and Jeremy Paxman will both look at the First World War, and Guardian journalist Luke Harding, author of The Snowden Files (Guardian Faber Publishing), will consider "surveillance and the self" in an event with Josh Cohen, author of The Private Life (Granta).
As part of the children’s programme, Julia Donaldson will showcase her latest book The Flying Bath (Macmillan) and actor Mackenzie Crook will launch his new title, The Lost Journals of Benjamin Tooth (Faber Faber). There will be plenty of classic children’s books celebrated too, with Frank Cottrell Boyce looking back on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Michael Rosen talking 25 years of We're Going on a Bear Hunt and children's author Debi Gliori honouring the work of Moomins creator Tove Jansson on the 100th anniversary of her birth. Other authors to appear will be children's laureate Malorie Blackman, Patrick Ness and John Boyne.
New poetry will come from Simon Armitage and former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, with talks from the UK's poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and the former US poet laureate Billy Collins.
The festival takes place shortly before Scotland's independence referendum on 18th September, and in a year where the Commonwealth Games are held in Scotland and it is the centenary of the First World War. Barley commented: "Really important writing takes place against a backdrop of what's happening in the world, so all the authors will be talking with that in the background." He said that speakers from "all points of view" would be discussing the issue of Scottish independence and there is lots of activity planned which will also address the topic.
A graphic novel about a future dystopian Scotland featuring contributions from Irvine Welsh and Denise Mina that the festival has produced in collaboration with Freight Books, titled IDP:2043, will be launched there. It has also commissioned writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Christos Tsiolkas to pen short stories about the themes of identity and home, which will be adapted into a promenade theatre production by the Scottish company Grid Iron, called “Letters Home”.
Barley explained: "The book festival provides a crucial forum for dialogue, where we can listen to and learn from one another, particularly in this year of momentous events in Scotland. Our thought-provoking conversations with both authors and audiences will permeate through Charlotte Square Gardens as we welcome world-renowned writers and thinkers from many countries and cultures to Edinburgh.”