Top literary figures sign up for next year's festival

Dubai: Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature (EAIFL) next March will host some of the most prominent literary figures in the English and Arabic speaking worlds, organisers said on Monday.

"The setting is stunning, with an inspired plot and 33 remarkable characters already on the scene - EAIFL 2010 promises to be a literary masterpiece," Isobel Abulhoul, director of the festival, said.

The festival is scheduled to be held from next March 10 to 13. Abulhoul said EAIFL will provide a weekend of debates, storytelling and poetry reading.

Some of the most prominent names in fiction that have signed up to participate in the international festival include Martin Amis, Mark Billingham, Tim Butcher, Christopher Cleave, Isabel Fonseca, James Meek and Alexander McCall Smith.

Non-fiction stars will include cookery writer and broadcaster Anjum Anand, historian William Dalrymple, best-selling author of 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene, historian Robert Lacey, one of the leading experts on history and international relations, Margaret MacMillan and biographer DJ Taylor.

Did you attend last year's EAIFL? Which author would you like to see this year? Do you think this will encourage young people to get into the habit of reading? Tell us at letter2editor@gulfnews.com