Press Release: IV ISLA Literary Festival

The IV ISLA Literary Festival, which is happening in the Instituto Cervantes, Lincoln House, Lincoln Place, Dublin 2 on 2nd, 3rd and 4th October, will be including a day dedicated to the memory as seen in the graphic novel with writer and illustrator Alfonso Zapico and Irish comics’ writer Dave Hendrick in The Past in the Graphic Novel. Here’s the full press release:

The present is just one possible version of the past

Location: Instituto Cervantes, Lincoln House, Lincoln Place, Dublin 2
Date: 2nd, 3rd and 4th October
Opening speech by Diarmaid Ferriter, 2nd October at 5pm
Free Admission
Simultaneous interpreting available for attendees in Spanish and English

ISLA Literary Festival comes back this year with an exciting programme. The IV ISLA is dedicated to the theme of Memory, in a broad sense. Memory as a way to understand our history, as the means of feeling closer to our ancestors while always knowing the memory can play tricks on us, no matter the time, place or situation.

ISLA will continue to use the round table discussion format to talk about our conflictive relationship with the past, in the events Resisting Oblivion with historian Diarmaid Ferriter, and writers Arantxa Urretabizkaia and Mónica Lavín. Looking at familiar and personal memory will be the focus of A Place Called Literature, a discussion among Juan Pablo Villalobos, Jordi Soler and Gerald Dawe.

The second day at ISLA will start with an interview of Juan Pablo Villalobos, Guardian First Book Award nominee for Down the Rabbit Hole and winner of the English Pen Award for Quesadillas. The panel Looking back: Writing Along the Way concentrates in travel writing and the details which allow us to be transported to our past, with Javier Reverte and Liam Mills.

There will be also time for discussing memory from the scientific point of view and the role our brain plays in our capacity of recollection at Remembering and Forgetting, with Prof. Ruth M. J. Byrne and writers Andrea Jeftanovic and Carlos Gamerro.

The unofficial history and the voice of those considered invisible will be explored at The Periphery and Life in the Margins with authors Lucía Guerra and Elvira Navarro. Explorations of Memory will be the opportunity to listen to some of our guests and participants to voice outstanding Irish and Hispanic literary works about memory.

Audrey Magee and Jerónimo Ledesma will close the events in this second day with From Reality to Fiction, an opportunity to put a face to the protagonists of historical events in an attempt to explain and humanise them.

The last day at ISLA will be dedicated to the memory as seen in the graphic novel with writer and illustrator Alfonso Zapico and comics’ writer Dave Hendrick in The Past in the Graphic Novel. The photography as a discipline and as a mean to conserve our past will also play an important role in this festival at the discussion Images and Remembrance.

As an interesting addition, this year’s ISLA expands the programme to many Irish Universities nationwide and to two significant cultural spaces in Dublin city, the IFI and the Irish Writers’ Centre, with a screening of From the Vaults: Innisfree and the workshop by Chilean writer Lucía Guerra Peripheral Voices: Breaking the Silence. Literary walks run in English and Spanish and we have also included an open call for the collective exhibition Memory Wall (all nationalities welcome).

More info: http://dublin.cervantes.es/FichasCultura/Ficha102118_16_2.htm (links to individual events and details available from this site)
Share the event in Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1638744293005464/
Twitter: #ISLA2015

Organised by: Instituto Cervantes Dublin
In collaboration with the Spanish Embassy in Dublin, Embassy of Argentina, Embassy of the Republic of Cuba, Embassy of Chile, Embassy of Mexico in Ireland, Bolivian Embassy (UK), Dublin UNESCO City of Literature, Ireland Literature Exchange, IFI, Irish Writers’ Centre, AECID, Instituto Vasco Etxepare and The Big Bang Comics.
With the kind support of University of Limerick, Trinity College Dublin, NUI Galway, DCU, UCC, UCD, NUI Maynooth
Media Partners: RTÉ Supporting the Arts.
Supporters: Food Fiesta

For more information or hi-res pictures please contact:
Miriam Abuin
Contact: 01 6311537/087 9437 506
E-mail: prendub@cervantes.es