The Bookworm Literary Festival (bookwormfestival.com) celebrates its 10th year with a series of events across several Chinese cities between March 11 and 27. Now firmly established as a showcase for outstanding literature and free expression, the 2016 Bookworm will be the biggest yet, featuring over 180 authors, performers and thinkers from over 30 countries.
As part of the festival, UNNC’s School of English will be hosting a series of events featuring renowned Chinese and international authors. Phillip Wilcox, playwright and reigning Australian Poetry Slam champion, will be on campus on March 14th with his unique spoken word performance. A further highlight will be on March 23rd when British-Chinese author, journalist and women’s issues advocate, Xinran will be holding a special talk.
Philip Wilcox - Spoken Word Performance
Monday March 14, 6:30PM, TB330
Philip Wilcox is the current Australian Poetry Slam National Champion, a competition that more than 1,000 Australian poets entered. He is also the two-time NSW Poetry Slam Champion. He hosts and co-organizes Three Poets Speak, a Sydney showcase of the finest spoken word artists from around Australia. He has featured in major events such as the Sydney Writers Festival, Wollongong Writers Festival, and Newtown Festival, where he performed for a crowd of more than 8,000. He recently headlined the Melbourne event Voices in the Attic. He is also a playwright, having co-written and directed Thursday, one of the most successful productions of the 2013 Sydney Fringe Comedy Festival.
Sergio Del Molinoz -The Violet Hour
Tuesday March 22, 6:30PM, TB330
Sergio del Molino is a Spanish writer and journalist born in Madrid in 1979, and the author of the memoir The Violet Hour, a poignant account of the death of his son from a rare and aggressive form of infant leukemia. The book won the Premio Ojo Crítico de Narrativa 2013 and Premio Tigre Juan 2014. Del Molino has also published short stories, an essay, works of research, and a collection of articles. He won the Premio de Literatura Joven del Gobierno de Aragón for fiction, and his first novel was chosen as one of the best ten books of 2012 by the Spanish Booksellers Association. He currently lives in Zaragoza, where he writes a Sunday column for Heraldo de Aragón.
Xinran - Buy Me the Sky: The remarkable Truth of China’s One-Child Generations
Wednesday March 23, 6:30PM, NTB-A06
This talk is organized in cooperation with the Gender, Culture and Identities Dialogues.
Xue Xinran, who writes under the pen name Xinran, is a British-Chinese journalist, author, and advocate of women’s issues. Her first book, The Good Women of China, was an international bestseller upon publication in 2002. She followed up with Sky Burial, a true account of a Han woman’s journey and experiences in Tibet, and her latest book is Buy Me the Sky, an investigation of the impact of China’s one-child policy on those born after 1970. Between 1989 and 1997 Xinran was the popular host of a call-in radio program in China called “Words on the Night Breeze.” She is also founder of The Mother’s Bridge of Love, which reaches out to adopted Chinese children around the world. She was born in Beijing in 1958 and currently lives in the UK.
Ofir Touché Gafla - The World of The End
Thursday March 24, 6:30PM, TB330
Ofir Touché Gafla was born in Israel. His bestselling first novel, The World of the End, won the 2005 Geffen Award for best fantasy/science fiction novel of the year and the 2006 Kugel Award for Hebrew literature. His later novels include The Cataract in the Mind’s Eye, Behind the Fog, and The Day the Music Died. The World of the End has been translated into many languages, including Chinese. He teaches creative writing in the Sam Spiegel School of TV and Cinema in Jerusalem.
NB: Here is the campus map that help you find the specific event place