The Edinburgh World Writers’ Conference, which reprises the conference held in the city in 1962, is a series of events which brings together writers from around the world to create an historic picture of the role of literature today. The conversation, created in association with the British Council, begins at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where 50 writers will join members of the public to discuss the state and role of the novel. After Edinburgh, the conference will go on to visit 15 different cities over the following 12 months
Edinburgh World Writers Conference: an insightful, gossipy and global view of our literary future
The 21st-Century Novel: Notes from the Edinburgh World Writers' Conference is a wonderful compendium of possible futures and striking directions for literature, writes Stuart Kelly
Fiction in the 21st century: what we learned at the Edinburgh World Writers' conference
From China Miéville's bullishness about the novel to Ma Thida's struggles against censorship, 20 keynote speeches over the course of the last year made for a fascinating conversation about the state of literature today
Literature needs freedom – and freedom needs literature
At the Edinburgh World Writers' conference in Kuala Lumpur, the eminent Burmese writer – imprisoned under censorship laws for more than five years – used her own experience to reflect on censorship and imagination
Hercule Poirot may not be a highbrow hero, but he still has plenty to teach us about life. Portuguese author José Rodrigues dos Santos on why all literature packs a political punch
Atiq Rahimi: 'In Iran just as well as in Afghanistan, in actual fact, words defy tyranny'
From the Edinburgh world writers' conference in Saint-Malo, a speech on art, writing and reality from the French-Afghan author and film-maker Atiq Rahimi
China's mass media-connected society is more complicated than novelists in the west could ever have imagined, requiring new forms of storytelling to define our subjective experience
Basharat Peer: 'The experience of censorship is as varied as the human experience itself'
Threats, letter bombs, cover-ups … Basharat Peer describes Kashmir's culture of intimidation in his keynote speech at the Edinburgh World Writers' Conference in Jaipur
Miriam Toews: Is there such a thing as a national literature?
Edinburgh world writers' conference in Toronto: The award-winning novelist on being Mennonite and Canadian – and not allowing herself to be confined by either
Njabulo S Ndebele: Should literature be political?
Under Apartheid the role of literature in South Africa was clear - it was a weapon of struggle. But after 18 years of democracy, the unpolitical has become political in its exploration of the complexities of life in a new century
Edinburgh World Writers' Conference from Cape Town: Antjie Krog says South Africa has a history, even during apartheid, of political literary engagement – a fact that proved crucial for later resistance by writers and singers. And its literature must continue to be read by government, for it inflects the anguish of reality
One of the richest strands to emerge from the festival is fiction from writers of East Asian origin, who record some of the most devastating social and political upheavals of the last half century
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