FACE FORWARD:

As we emerge from lockdown,
join writers and artists as they imagine a better world

at ILFDublin 20-30 May

International Literature Festival Dublin returns this week (20-30 May) with an exciting range of events with writers, thinkers, cooks and curators who discuss their vision for a more sustainable and progressive world, built on ideas around empathy and social justice.

As we emerge from lockdown and look to the future, reimagine life on the other side with these future facing online events: from rethinking the climate emergency, to finding the goodness in people, from reimaging how we cook to minimise waste and celebrate leftovers, to taking a fresh look at democracy and social justice for a young adult audience.

What happens when the most creative minds of our generation are asked to re-think the climate emergency?

Changing Minds with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Manthia Diawara and Maya Lin

Sun 23 May, 8pm, €8

Curator and writer Hans Ulrich Obrist – frequently cited among the art world’s most influential figures – is the creative force behind 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth an urgent and innovative guide to re-thinking the climate emergency. Joining him in conversation are Manthia Diawara and Maya Lin. Diawara is a Malian writer, filmmaker and cultural theorist, currently working on Back To Earth, a film about climate change and its effects on the fishing community of Yene, Senegal. Maya Lin is an architect and installation artist who this month unveiled Ghost Forest in New York’s Madison Square Park: an installation of 49 dead cedar trees that highlights the effect of climate change on forests.

From headlines in the newspapers to the laws that dictate how we live our lives, humans are depicted as being selfish beings by nature. Rutger Bregman disagrees.

Good People with Rutger Bregman

Thu 20 May, 6pm, €8

Rutger Bregman’s Humankind is the ‘big ideas’ book for our times which ‘seeks to fundamentally shift and change the narrative of how we understand human nature.’ Lily Cole. Asserting that human beings are essentially co-operative and kind it was published during the first Covid lockdown and its topicality propelled it onto the New York Times bestseller lists. Bregman is known for his disruptive vision – calling out tax-shy billionaires at Davos, and championing Universal Basic Income in his debut book Utopia for Realists.

The far-reaching vision of Humankind is even more valuable right now as we rebuild society and seek to make sense of the ‘new normal’. Bregman is in conversation with writer and journalist Louise O’Neill.

Pioneering and endlessly inventive, award-winning food writer Anna Jones travels the world with recipes that reduce waste and utilise leftovers.

One… Simple Message: Anna Jones in conversation with Aoife McElwain

Wed 26 May, 7.30pm, €6

Anna Jones’ new book One: Pot, Pan, Planet offers a greener way to cook with a conscience. One of the most popular vegetarian food writers, her inventive and varied recipes also help reduce waste, use leftovers and make your kitchen plastic free. Anna will be in conversation with Aoife McElwain, recently appointed as chief food writer at the Sunday Times.

Angie Thomas discusses her new novel Concrete Rose, a poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood, with spoken word poet Britta B.

All Is Fair in Love … and YA: Angie Thomas & Britta B.

Fri 21 May, 6pm, €8

Ideas of democracy and social justice are at the very heart of the writing of YA author Angie Thomas. She joins Britta B. to discuss her new novel Concrete Rose, an emotionally honest and poignant exploration of Black boyhood and manhood. Concrete Rose returns to Garden Heights 17 years before the events of The Hate U Give in which Starr Carter, a 16-year-old girl finds her voice after witnessing a police officer kill her best friend.