Irrawaddy Literary Festival 2017
FRIDAY 3rd – SUNDAY 5th NOVEMBER, MANDALAY, MYANMAR
CELEBRATING THE POWER OF STORY
MINGALABAR and WELCOME to the second Irrawaddy Literary Festival newsletter, with a further update on our plans for this year’s event in November, another feast of engrossing literary and cultural activities for visitors from Myanmar and beyond.
Learn more on the Irrawaddy Literary Festival website!
TO RECAP, the fourth Irrawaddy Literary Festival will be held at the beautiful Mandalay Hill Resort Hotel, Friday 3rd – Sunday 5th November 2017. If you haven’t yetBOOKED ACCOMMODATION, get in touch soon to take advantage of the special rates for Festival guests. CONTACT mhrh.reservation@gmail.com for further information. Details about alternative accommodation is available via our travel partners listed below.
PROGRAMME UPDATE
We continue to build a fabulous FESTIVAL PROGRAMME featuring around 100 Myanmar authors and 30 international writers.
Our Myanmar authors will include:
U Nay Oke, participant at TEDx InyaLake, where he presented Love Poems: How love enriched Myanmar’s literature forever, about the love poetry written by his mother, Khin Saw Mu, who died soon after his birth.
Myay Hmone Lwin is an author and publisher, his own works including poetry, novels and short stories as well as a significant anthology of Burmese writing from Iowa. He is also the Founder of NDSP (Ngar Doe Sar Pay, meaning ‘Our Literature’) publishing house and Yangon Book Plaza, and he has been shortlisted for the ‘Freedom to Publish’ Prize.
From the UK:
Keggie Carew, author of Dadland, the extraordinary story of her father, Tom Carew, a war hero celebrated as ‘Lawrence of Burma’, the youngest officer ever to be awarded a Distinguished Service Order. Dadland has been described as a ‘mesmerising performance by a natural storyteller gifted with the most seductive material possible’. It won the Costa Award for Biography in 2016.
From Australia:
Alice Pung is highly acclaimed for a memoir about her father, Her Father’s Daughter, a remarkable account of his experiences in the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Alice’s work includes a novel, Laurinda, and a coming-of-age memoir, Unpolished Gem. She is also an award-winning journalist and essayist. Alice is Artist in Residence at Janet Clarke Hall at the University of Melbourne.
ILF PARTNERS – full list HERE
Our sincere thanks to the following new partners engaged since the last newsletter:
KBZ BANK ~ EDEN GROUP / SEDONA HOTEL ~ COCA-COLA ~
ALLEN & GLEDHILL ~ JANE ADAMS COMMUNICATIONS ~ ECHO MYANMAR ~ LUCKY WATER COMPANY
Educational partners:
The University of Melbourne is a generous long-term supporter of the Irrawaddy Literary Festival, sponsoring four authors / academics including Alice Pung.
Other educational partners include The Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, whose 2017 delegation to the ILF will be headed by Britain’s Poet Laureate, Dame Carol Ann Duffy. More details in the next newsletter.
Travel partners:
PANDAW RIVER CRUISES are offering a special discount to Festival participants and audiences on two of their cruises docking in Mandalay at the time of the Festival. Please see below for further information.
GO-MYANMAR.COM – http://www.go-myanmar.com/ – the comprehensive Myanmar travel website.
PANDAW STORY
Pandaw River Cruises are intimate and luxurious cruising experiences, exploring remote and often hard-to-navigate rivers and coasts in specially-designed small ships handcrafted in brass and teak. There are two special trips to tie in with the ILF 2017.
The Indochina Pandaw will depart from Pagan on 28th October 2017, sailing upstream to Mandalay, a total of 7 nights. The ship will be docked at the Sagaing Jetty in Mandalay on the nights of Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd November, providing a great opportunity for guests to experience the Festival while using the ship as a floating hotel. https://www.pandaw.com/expeditions/mandalay-pagan-packet/upstream/
The Kalaw Pandaw will be docked in Mandalay on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th November 2017, sailing downstream towards Pagan on Monday 6th November, a total of 7 nights. https://www.pandaw.com/expeditions/mandalay-pagan-packet/downstream/
ILF participants and audience members are eligible for a 10% discount on published rates. Contact the Pandaw reservations team, information@pandaw.com or +84 985 417 758 /+84 936 903 168.
HELP US WRITE THE NEXT CHAPTER
1. SIGN UP for Facebook updates.
2. CONNECT US with friends and supporters by forwarding this newsletter and asking them to sign up.
3. ATTEND the Festival in November.
CONTACTS
Jennie Orchard – Chair, Board of Trustees, jennie.orchard@bigpond.com
Jane Heyn – Founder & Festival Director, jane.heyn@gmail.com