International Riveting Reads

‘INTERNATIONAL RIVETING READS’
Launch event for ‘WRITERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!’
a festival of literature and social change.
28^th April – 1^st May 2017
Waterstones Piccadilly, London

Introduction from Rosie Goldsmith
aka Rosie The Riveter’, Director of the European Literature Network.

Welcome to International Riveting Reads, the launch event for our first
Writers Of The World Unite! Festival, in collaboration with Waterstones Piccadilly, Little Atoms and Speaking Volumes.
Welcome to our European Literature Network multi-media coverage of the event on 28^th April 2017. We hope you enjoy our photos and ten short films of all ten participating international writers on the night.
Thank you, as ever, for the support of my merry band of fellow Riveters: Anna Blasiak, band manager, Mihai Andrei on Video, and Max (Jazzhands) Easterman on photos and finance.
ELNet is supported by Arts Council England and ELit/Creative Europe.

ROSIE’S RIVETING REVOLUTIONARY MANIFESTO
(introduction to the writers and the event!)
Can literature change the world?
We believe it can. It can comfort us in times of trouble, it can motivate, incite, enthuse and record change and revolution.
Some say we live in revolutionary times.
Do we? If so, what does that mean for writers, performers and readers?
Do you feel part of a creative revolution? Or do we need one?
It is one hundred years since the Russian Revolution began – we still feel the impact today.
It is sixty years since Indian Independence…
Over a quarter of a century since the revolutions of Eastern Europe…
since the break-up of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union…
China, Cuba, Colombia, South and Central America – we can still feel the reverberations of all these world revolutions.
And now we face our own European revolution.

Here in London tonight we have gathered together a creative community of ten of the world’s top storytellers. Each will have ten minutes to incite and excite us with their fiction, poetry or non-fiction.
Why have I invited these authors?
Each of these authors has had a profound impact – on me, on literature and on the world – through their lives and their stories.
They are witty, wise, provocative and original – in their own languages, in translation or writing in their second or third languages. Only one of them was actually born here in London but this great world city has opened its arms to them.
Please welcome all ten of our INTERNATIONAL RIVETING AUTHORS

1. Boris Akunin, London/Russia
2. Zinovy Zinik, London/Russia
3. Rory MacLean, Dorset/Berlin/Eastern Europe
4. Vesna Goldsworthy, London/Serbia and Former Yugoslavia
5. George Szirtes, Norfolk/Hungary
6. Elif Shafak, London/Turkey
7. Cristina Sánchez-Andrade, Galicia, Spain
8. Vaseem Khan, London/Mumbai in India
9. Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, London/ Colombia
10. Diego Marani – our favourite European, all the way from BRUSSELS (no expense spared)– via Italy.

With the Russian Revolution as our ‘creative inspiration’, we start tonight with two writers from Russia originally who have taken very different paths: Boris Akunin, followed by Zinovy Zinik.
You can watch my introduction and all ten videos of each author: Boris Akunin, Zinovy Zinik, Rory MacLean, Vesna Goldsworthy, George Szirtes, Elif Shafak, Cristina Sánchez-Andrade, Vaseem Khan, Oscar Guardiola-Rivera and Diego Marani.