The Fairway Galle Literary Festival 2018
The Fairway Galle Literary Festival was successfully completed for the ninth time from 24th – 28th January 2018 at the historic Dutch Galle Fort, with this year’s programme comprising of over 110 events. A magical journey that predominantly celebrates literature, the Festival included film appreciation, poetry at teatime, gourmet dinners, schools events, a children’s programme, a Sinhala Day, the Galle Art Trail, classical music concerts, jazz events, cabaret and historic city walks. The Pièce de résistance was the Fairway National Literary Awards 2017, which recognise and reward local literary talent.
This exciting annual event has remained at the forefront of the year’s cultural offerings, with appearances from world renowned authors, filmmakers, broadcasters, editors and academics from around the globe. The festival was a feast of the arts and more with sessions on poetry, fiction, drama, history, medicine, architecture, conservation, restoration, natural history, climate change, political science, theology, cookery, music and travel.
Packed with interactive sessions for adults and children alike, the Festival engaged people in intellectual discussions, animated debates and intimate conversations, through interaction between participants and visitors.
As a socially responsible corporate, Fairway Holdings is committed to the development of arts and culture in Sri Lanka, is proud to be the title sponsor of this prestigious event.
Lord David Puttnam
Lord David Puttnam is a British film producer who spent thirty years as an independent producer of award-winning films including The Mission, The Killing Fields, Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, Bugsy Malone and Local Hero. Together these films have won ten Oscars, ten golden globes, twenty-five BAFTA’s and the Palme D’Or at Cannes. He retired from film production in 1998 to focus on his work in public policy and is currently the Chair of Atticus Education, an online education company founded in 2012 that delivers audio-visual seminars to students all over the world.
He was awarded a CBE in 1982 and a knighthood in 1995. He has been the recipient of more than 50 honorary degrees from Universities in the UK and overseas.
Alexander McCall Smith
The renowned author of more than 100 books, including specialist academic titles, short story collections, and children’s publications, he is principally recognized as the author of “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” Series, which follows a female detective who begins the first detective agency in Botswana.
McCall Smith is an Emeritus Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Edinburgh, and a prolific author of fiction. He has been awarded thirteen honorary doctorates, as well as the “National Arts Club of America Medal of Honor” for Achievement in Literature in 2017.
Richard Flanagan
Richard Flanagan won the Man Booker prize in 2014 for The Narrow Road to the Deep North and has been appraised as ‘the finest Australian novelist of his generation’.
Born in Tasmania, his novels “Death of a River Guide”, “The Sound of One Hand Clapping”, “Gould’s Book of Fish”, “The Unknown Terrorist”, “Wanting” and “The Narrow Road to the Deep North” have received numerous honours and are published in 42 countries. His new book is titled ‘First Person’.
Sebastian Faulks
British journalist and broadcaster, Sebastian Faulks grew up in Newbury and attended Wellington College and Cambridge thereafter. He worked as a feature writer for the Sunday Telegraph from 1983 to 1986 and was the first literary editor of “The Independent”. He then went on to become deputy editor of “The Sunday Independent”. He was awarded the CBE in 2002 and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1993. He is the author of best-selling novels “Birdsong”, “Devil May Care” and “Jeeves and the Wedding Bells”.
Dame Maggie Smith
The acclaimed award winning actress, recognized globally for her portrayal of the Dowager Duchess in the very popular period drama “Downton Abbey”, has experienced a varied career on stage, film and television spanning over sixty-six years. She has appeared in over 50 films and is one of Britain’s most acclaimed actresses.
She has won two Oscars for ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ and ‘California Suite’ and numerous other awards for performances on stage, film and television. She was awarded a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from BAFTA in 1993. She is an Honorary D.Litt of Cambridge University, and is a patron of the Jane Austen Society. She is also a Vice-President of the Royal Theatrical Fund.
Pankaj Mishra
Pankaj Mishra is an acclaimed Indian author, writer of literary and political essays, and a Bloomberg View columnist based in the UK. His books include “Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India”, “From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia,” “Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond” and “An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World”.
His latest book Age of Anger: A History of the Present (2017) about the transition to modernity and the rise of the right wing as well as how other modern ‘ills’ have had a lively and broad reception globally.
Website – https://galleliteraryfestival.com/
