09 Sep Irvine Welsh appearing at Babel & Pikes Literary Festivals
“In 2019 Babel reaches out to the borders of natural languages, in search of languages that are imagined, invented, despised, censored, regional, silent, visual, and enigmatic. Languages fit to articulate a hypothetical cosmos or alternative realities. Languages that let us listen to other worlds. Languages for those without a language. Languages for everyone, and languages for the few. And the ever-renewed space between languages: translation”.
Irvine Welsh is well known for the use of Edinburgh slang in his novels and it’s not an urban myth that the film version of “Trainspotting” was not only subtitled, but re-dubbed, in order to make it understandable to the American cinema audiences. However reading an entire novel written in Scottish street slang has not thwarted his success as a writer and therefore it’s no surprise that he should be asked to appear at this year’s Babel Literary Festival in Bellinzona, Switzerland (12th to 14th September 2019). Especially as the festival focuses specifically on “Translation” and literature. This year’s edition is entitled “You Will Not Speak My Language” and Irvine will be interviewed as part of a panel discussing “Slang and Despised Languages” alongside the Italian translator of “Trainspotting” Giuliana Zeuli and the Scottish/Swiss theatre & music producer Alan Alpenfelt.
Irvine will also be DJing at the event’s after party this Saturday night.
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On his way to Switzerland, Irvine will swing by the legendary Pikes Hotel in Ibiza for an appearance at their second ever literary festival – featuring British writer Linda Quinn, Libertine’s frontman Carl Barat and biographer Matt Trollope.