Dubai: The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature has released the names of 12 authors who will be attending the 2016 festival.
Literary enthusiasts will be particularly excited to learn that Helen MacDonald, winner of the 2014 Costa Book Award for her best-selling book H is for Hawk, will be here.
Acclaimed British personalities, including UK’s Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, philosopher A.C. Grayling, and Professor Tim Spector, author of Identically Different and the best-selling The Diet Myth, will also be flying in.
“At our inaugural festival in 2009, we had a total of 65 authors participating,” said Isobel Abulhoul, CEO and Trustee of the Emirates Literature Foundation and Festival Director of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature. “But today, with our eighth festival still another eight months away, we already have more than 65 authors confirmed. The popularity and esteem in which the festival is held is most heartening.”
Festival favourite crime writer Ian Rankin will be returning with another Detective Rebus mystery, while Anthony Horowitz, a prolific author who has turned his hand to writomg the latest James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis, is also very popular with younger festival-goers who are fans of his Alex Rider series.
2016 will also feature Suad Amiry, author of Sharon and My Mother-in-Law and Nothing to Lose But Your Life: An 18-Hour Journey with Murad; and Anchee Min, celebrated author of best-selling memoirs and historical novels about China.
“So, that is the first group of names,” said Isobel Abulhoul. “Why 12 you may ask? The theme for 2016 is ‘Time’, so 12 made perfect sense! Shortly, the festival will release the next 12 names of attending writers, who will be here from March 8-12, 2016.”
At the heart of the festival has always been its children’s programme. The festival can confirm that Petr Horacek, paper engineer and illustrator of numerous children’s books including The Mouse Who Ate the Moon and the recent A Surprise for Tiny Mouse, will be one of the many children’s authors coming to Dubai in 2016.
