The island of the gods beckons again ...

2009 Ubud Writers & Readers Festival

A FRAGMENT of wonderful news from Janet De Neefe, the festival director of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival. The literary goddess of Ubud has announced a tentative line-up of 80 authors for 2009, including Adelaide-based Booker Prize-winner and Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee (Disgrace, Life & Times of Michael K); Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka (You Must Set Forth at Dawn), the first African to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature; Vikas Swarup (Slumdog Millionaire, Six Suspects); Hari Kunzru (My Revolutions, Transmission, The Impressionist); Mohammed Hanif (A Case of Exploding Mangoes); Ed Husain (The Islamist); 2007 Orange Prize-winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (The Thing Around Your Neck, Half of a Yellow Sun, Purple Hibiscus); Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate); Nuruddin Farah (Knots, Links, Sweet and Sour Milk, From a Crooked Rib); Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip, Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance, The Book of Fame, Biografi); and Australian novelists Geraldine Brooks (People of the Book, March, Year of Wonders); Kate Grenville (The Lieutenant, The Secret River, The Idea of Perfection, Dark Places), Michelle de Kretser (The Lost Dog, The Hamilton Case, The Rose Grower) and Christos Tsolkias (The Slap, Dead Europe).

Now in its sixth year, the festival will run from October 7-11, 2009, with the theme Sorrow and Joy, examining the strength of the human spirit in triumphing over adversity and other impossible odds.