Finuala Dowling is appearing at the Twenty-Sixth Aldeburgh Poetry Festival this weekend. The festival, which includes over 50 events, is run across the Suffolk towns of Snape Maltings and Aldeburgh. The UK’s pre-eminent annual festival of contemporary poetry, the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival is for a mix of international names, lesser-known voices and exceptional newcomers. The festival also tends not to invite poets back more than once in a ten-year period, in order to keep line-ups fresh and exciting, so this will be a rare chance to catch Finuala appearing at Aldeburgh.
Finuala will be appearing at the following events:
Friday 7 November, 17:30-18:30
How to craft sly, succinct, memorable lines at the Jerwood Kiln Studio in Snape
Saturday 8 November, 9:30-10:30
Discussion: Poetry & Disobedience – Britten Studio, Snape PF9
with Thomas Lux, Tom Pickard and Hannah Silva
Sunday 9 November, 15:30-17:15
3.30-5.15 – Main reading: Finuala Dowling, Thomas Lux, Adelia Prado – Britten Studio, Snape
with Ellen Dore Watson (Translator)
Follow the festival organiser, The Poetry Trust, on Twitter or use the hashtag #APF26 to follow the events.
Finuala Dowling’s first poetry collection, I FLYING, won South Africa’s prestigious Ingrid Jonker Prize. Her second collection, DOO-WOP GIRLS OF THE UNIVERSE was joint winner of the Sanlam Prize for poetry, and her third, NOTES FROM THE DEMENTIA WARD, won the Olive Schreiner Prize. Her short stories, poems and essays have appeared in several anthologies. Her first novel was WHAT POETS NEED, followed by FLYLEAF. HOME-MAKING FOR THE DOWN-AT-HEART won the M-Net Prize 2012 and was shortlisted for the University of Johannesburg Prize in the same year. Her new novel THE FETCH will be published in South Africa by Kwela in March 2015.
Praise for Finuala Dowling:
‘In years to come Dowling will be recognised for the home-grown Austen that she is.’ – Diane Awerbuck, TimesLive
‘[Dowling’s] fiction has its own special flavour, achieved by an alchemy of wit, irony, acuity, common sense and desperation.’- Jane Rosenthal, Mail & Guardian
‘Dowling is the local master of tragicomedy.’ – Danie Marais, Boeke-Insig