The Ubud Writers and Readers Festival 2008

THE 2008 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival will be held on October 14-19, 2008. And guess what? Assuming things do not change, Chilean novelist Isabel Allende is leading the line-up for next year’s event! Allende, of course, is the author of such wonderful novels as The House of the Spirits (1985), Of Love and Shadows (1987), Eva Luna (1988) and Daughter of Fortune (1999), and a compelling memoir, My Invented Country (2003). Her latest book is Inés of My Soul (2006), a historical novel that recounts the astonishing life of Inés Suárez, an audacious Spanish conquistadora who toiled to build the nation of Chile.

The theme of the 5th International Ubud Writers and Readers Festival will be ‘Us and Them.’ Both established writers and emerging writers will confront the issue of cultural collisions. Besides Allende, other invited guests include Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka, British-Caribbean author Caryl Phillips, Mexican writer Alberto Ruy-Sanchez, Australian Helen Garner, Geraldine Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March (2005), and Vikram Seth, the celebrated author of such books as A Suitable Boy (1993) and Two Lives (2005).