The Liverpool Hope Literary Festival Autumn 2008

Running in conjunction with the Cornerstone Arts Festival, the English Department of Liverpool Hope University presents its own international literary festival. To contribute to the celebrations of Liverpool's status as Cultural Capital of Europe, we are staging a number of renowned local writers, who will be reading from and discussing Liverpool in the literary imagination. The Festival also has invited internationally acclaimed writers.

On Thursday 27 November, the American writer Douglas Cowie will be reading from, and discussing, his rock'n'roll road novel Owen Noone and the Marauder, and addressing wider issues, such as the significance of the recent American elections.

Liverpool is a fascinating and complex story that is narrated above all by the poetry it inspires. On Wednesday 3rd December, two critically acclaimed poets who have connected place with voice, Eleanor Rees and Jean Sprackland, will read from their work and to discuss Liverpool as a place of the imagination.

Behind the celebrations of Liverpool as a glossy Cultural Capital of Europe, the erection of hotels that looks like ocean liners made out of glass, mega shopping malls, there exist a city of darkness, of oppression, of crime and squalor, of drugs and prostitution, of poverty, unemployment and reduced humanity. Niall Griffiths, Helen Walsh and Kevin Sampson have all experienced and written about this Liverpool. On Thursday 4 December they will read from their work and discuss the dark underworlds of Liverpool.

The Festival closes with a special event that involves the internationally renowned novelist and musician Amit Chaudhuri (A Strange and Sublime Address; A New World), who will perform his music project, 'This is Not Fusion', a hybrid mixture of jazz, blues, Indian folk music. The project has received raving reviews from critics and musicians around the world, praising its originality, inventiveness and vibrancy. Chaudhuri will also talk about how this project fits in with his writing, and read from his fiction.

All events take place at the Cornerstone Campus. For tickets and further information please visit the website or call the Box Office on 0151 291 3578.