From Friday 18th – Sunday 20th June from 11am to 7pm in the Square Réné Viviani directly next to Shakespeare & Company, the globally famous English bookshop in Paris is hosting a literary festival. Readings, discussions, guest authors, musicians and baristas will be celebrating the theme of Storytelling and Politics. It’s all free and co-director, Australian Jemma Birrell tells Ruby TV about it.
What is the history of Shakespeare & Company and why is the bookshop still so famous?
Shakespeare and Company embodies literary Paris in a way – the first Shakespeare and Company was frequented by the likes of Hemingway, Stein and Joyce and the current Shakespeare and Company, opened by George Whitman in 1951 (he is now 96 and still lives upstairs) was well know for it’s readings with writers such as Bukowski, Ginsberg, Laurence Durrell and James Baldwin – and of course all of that literary tradition is continued now by our weekly readings with incredible writers and this literary festival.
How you have directed this festival in terms of themes, ideas and structures?
We have invited writers who explore different aspects of this year’s festival theme of Storytelling and Politics – there are poets, artists, novelists, performers, singers, essayists and even some roaming storytellers. In respects to the writers, we’ve really chosen writers we love or admire or who fascinate us in some way…it’s not about whether the writer has a new book out – we look at the body of their work…
Which attending authors are you excited about and why? Who else will be there?
I’m looking forward to them all for different reasons – I’ve always loved Martin Amis’s writing, Will Self and Hanif Kureish and Jeanette Winterson of course has written some of my favourite books…Performance poets Zena Edwards and TJ Dema from Botswana are pretty spectacular too. Yusef’s work is really powerful as is the way he reads….Emma Larkin and Fatima Bhutto are two incredible women and writers – the list goes on.
What will be a few of the other highlights of the festival?
The roaming storytellers in the park, Porchlight Storytelling from San Francisco, Beth Orton and 5×15 from London, The Paper Cinema (a shadow puppet theatre) and exquisite cellist Natalie Clein who will be playing in the park (she is one of the best cellists in the world).
What do people love the most about Shakespeare & Co?
I think people love it being a true old-fashioned bookshop with books piled in every corner from floor to ceiling – there’s nothing chain about it – and everyone here loves books! And of course the literary history. George and his daughter Sylvia who manages the shop have created a beautiful haven…
