Tipped at the Top: Richard Holloway on his Highlights for the 2009 Book Festival
Richard Holloway was appointed as Guest Director of this year’s Book Festival after departing Director Catherine Lockerbie had picked the programme. Still, who better to pick from the big names than the writer, theologian, and controversial former bishop?
“It’s wonderful to have this big concentration of intellectual firepower from all over the globe, descending – parachuting – into Charlotte Square.
Richard Dawkins has got a big, big stonking new book coming out and again we’ve got the privilege of launching it - called The Greatest Show on Earth - and it’s about evolution. And that’s important.
I think Dawkins is probably one of the most trenchantly exciting writers working today. I don’t totally agree with him, but he’s been an astonishingly popular writer of science, and he has – in a very combative way – challenged what I think of as bad religion. I think there’s some religion that’s actually quite good for the human species, but a lot of it isn’t. And he has challenged it, and, in a way, has single-handedly put it on the map.
He and I have debated very warmly in public several times – we don’t exactly see eye to eye, but I do respect what he’s doing, and he’s a wonderful public performer, so of course his events sell out.
Margaret Atwood, one of the most important novelists in the world, is actually launching her new novel in two ways. She’s launching it at St John’s, Princes Street, because it’s a novel about religion, about the end of the world. It’s an extraordinary piece of work, I’m halfway through it at the moment. She’s written hymns as part of the text, and so she wanted to launch it in a church, so we’ve provided that. And there will also be a major evening event the same day. So that’s going to be a thrill.
She is a different kettle of fish to Dawkins. Atwood is a supreme artist and her versatility is quite astonishing. And this new book is a way of looking at the current human situation, and the kind of tragic impact the human species is having on the planet. So I think it’s both great literature and also a prophetic moral challenge.
But of course, almost anything you put your finger on will be wonderful. The poetry itself is always astonishingly good. We’ve got Don Paterson; we’ve got John Burnside… they’re all people writing at the peak of their powers as well.
I’m sounding a bit Pollyanna-ish here, but I really do think there’s an astonishing feast of people at this Festival.