London Literature Festival 2007

Southbank Centre launches
the first London Literature Festival

29 June – 12 July 2007, Southbank Centre

This summer Southbank Centre will host the first ever London Literature Festival, as part of the reopening celebrations of this historic festival site. The festival is a culmination of an unrivalled year-round programme at the UK’s foremost literature venue and will become an essential date in the cultural diary.

The London Literature Festival grows out of and mirrors the rich cultural and political mix of our capital city. Featuring international writers, prize winning authors, historians, poets, artists, musicians, specially commissioned work, debate and discussion, interactive and improvised writing and performance, as well as the largest bookcrossing event in the UK, the London Literature Festival will use all the venues and outdoor spaces across the 21-acre Southbank Centre site.

London Literature Festival highlights include:

• Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka delivering the inaugural Southbank Centre Lecture, on the theme ‘civilisation’

• The premiere of Roger McGough and Brian Patten’s touring event,40-Love presented by Southbank Centre on Tour

• A multi-media celebration of W.H. Auden to mark the centenary of his birth, with readings of his work by James Fenton, Simon Armitage and Kwame Kwei-Armah

• An evening with reggae poets including legend Linton Kwesi Johnson, Amina and Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez, Kendel Hippolyte and Lesego Rampolokeng

• Children’s events with Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Rosen and Lauren Child

• Pat Barker’s only London appearance to launch her new novel, Life Class

• The world premiere of Heiner Goebbels’ Songs of Wars I have Seen, bringing to life Gertrude Stein’s impressions of Paris during the second world war

• Other novelists, historians, comedians and poets appearing at the festival include: John Agard, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, Kate Grenville, Xiaolu Guo, John Hegley, Tobias Hill, A.M. Homes, Armando Iannucci, Barbara Kingsolver, Hari Kunzru, Liz Lochhead, Blake Morrison, Helen Oyeyemi, Iain Sinclair, Mark Thomas.

Coinciding with the launch of this new literary festival is the 25th anniversary of the iconic London literary landmark, the Southbank Centre Book Market. Various festival participants will hold impromptu events at the stalls, reading aloud and quoting from the titles they find.

The UK’s largest book crossing event with 1,000 free books written by Londoners or about London, provided by Penguin, will be placed around the Southbank Centre site. A book crossing shed on Festival Square will contain a comfy sofa and shelves in which the public can read and leave books for others to share. Stamped with London Literature Festival, it is hoped that many of the books will travel across the UK and further afield.

The London Literature Festival will also celebrate the re-opening of the renowned Poetry Library, marked by an event on Wednesday, 4 July with Iain Sinclair, Tobias Hill and Sean Borodale. Recently featured on Radio Four as one of the world’s great libraries, the newly refurbished Poetry Library is one of the largest and most accessible resources of its kind in the world. Tours of the Poetry Library will be available during the festival, daily at 5.30pm.

• The London Literature Festival at Southbank Centre runs from 29 June – 12 July 2007. For further event details, please visit www.southbankcentre.co.uk/literaturefestival

To book tickets, please call 0870 160 2522 or go online at www.southankcentre.co.uk

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The London Literature Festival 2007 – Poetry etc listings

Friday 29 June
• Roger McGough and Brian Patten: 40- love
7.30pm Queen Elizabeth Hall, £9

Southbank Centre hosts the premiere of 40-Love, marking the 40th anniversary republication of The Mersey Sound anthology. One million copies later, two of the UK's best-loved poets regroup to read their 20 most requested poems.

Saturday 30 June
• John Hegley, John Agard, Liz Lochhead & Matt Harvey
8.15 pm Purcell Room, Royal Festival Hall £8.50

The Mersey Sound turned poetry on its head, ushering in a new wave of poets who danced to a different tune. Tonight we celebrate this extraordinary legacy with rhythms, rhymes and music.

Sunday 1 July
• Michael Rosen
2.00 pm Purcell Room, Adults £7, Children £4.50

Michael Rosen performs his one-man show of poems, songs, jokes and stories. Author of such fantastic titles as Centrally Heated Knickers, A Spider Bought a Bicycle and Something's Drastic, Michael Rosen gives a performance that will have you falling off your seat with laughter.

Tuesday 3 July
• W H Auden
7.30 pm Queen Elizabeth Hall, £9

Marking the centenary of WH Auden' birth, tenor John Mark Ainsley, actor Kwame Kwei-Armah, pianist Roger Vignoles and poets Simon Armitage, James Fenton and Jo Shapcott, celebrate his life and work in a special evening of oratorio, songs, poems, film and images.

Wednesday 4 July
• Sean Borodale, Tobias Hill & Iain Sinclair
7.00 pm Level 5 Function Room, Royal Festival Hall £7

Celebrating the reopening of the Poetry Library, three poets pay tribute to London as muse. Sean Borodale's topographical poem Notes for an Atlas 'rings with sadness, haphazardness and utterly modern beauty' (Robert MacFarlane). Tobias Hill's Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow is an acutely observed hymn to the city. Iain Sinclair, one of London's great writers, reads poems on the city from his recent collection The Firewall. This event coincides with the Saison Poetry Library exhibition of books on the theme of London.

Thursday 5 July
• London SLAM Champions
6.30 pm Front Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall Admission Free

In this showcase of the Rise Slam Champions, MC Joelle Taylor introduces you to some of the most innovative rhyming and rapping young stars of London's spoken-word scene.

Thursday 5 July
• Linton Kwesi Johnson and Friends
7.30 pm Queen Elizabeth Hall, £9

For one night only renowned reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson has invited an all-star line-up of some of most musical and socially conscious poets from across the globe: Amina Baraka and Amira Baraka (US), founders of the Black Arts Movement in Harlem; Jayne Cortez (US); Kendel Hippolyte (St Lucia) and Lesego Rampolokeng (South Africa).

Saturday 7 July
• Plant a Poem with Malika Booker
11.00 am Level 5 Function Room, Royal Festival Hall
Suitable for children ages seven and over £4 Children, Accompanying adults free

Plant a poem as part of the Sheds, Beds and Breads installation in Southbank Centre Square. Poet and performer Malika Booker reads her garden poems, and leads a poetry writing workshop before leading everyone out to plant flower seeds and mark them with their specially crafted poem.

Sunday 8 July
• Nii Ayikwei Parkes
12.30 pm Level 5 Function Room, Royal Festival Hall £6 Adults, £4 Children

Part human, part spider, combining wisdom with cunning, Ananse the Spider Trickster is one of the most important figures in West African storytelling. These classic moral tales and proverbs are retold with flair and imagination by Nii Ayikwei Parkes.