Emirates sponsors popular authors to Galle Literary Festival

Two award-winning African writers and a popular Sri Lankan born novelist will be among the eminent authors participating in the 2011 Galle Literary Festival (GLF), thanks to Emirates, a fourth-time sponsor of this annual event.

South African Damon Galgut, Nigerian Chimamanda Adichie and Karen Roberts, now resident in California, have been provided with travel sponsorship to the festival by the award-winning Dubai-based international airline.

“Emirates is happy to support the Galle Literary Festival once again,” said Chandana De Silva, the airline’s Area Manager for Sri Lanka and Maldives. “The festival continues to gain in stature and has become a significant event on the country’s events calendar. It has also helped to generate visibility for Sri Lanka among an important segment of international travellers – writers and literature enthusiasts.”

Popular authors sponsored by Emirates at previous editions of the Galle Literary Festival include Michelle de Kretser, Ru Freeman, Vasugi V. Ganeshananthan and Germaine Greer.

An award-winning South African playwright and novelist who lives in Cape Town, Damon Galgut was born in Pretoria, South Africa in 1963. He was only 17 when his debut novel, ‘A Sinless Season,’ was published. His third book, ‘The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs’ (1991) won the CNA Prize, South Africa’s leading literary award. ‘The Quarry’ (1995) was made into a feature film, which went on to win prizes on the international film festival circuit.

‘The Good Doctor’ published in 2003 and set in post-apartheid South Africa was shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize in 2003 and won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book from the Africa Region. Galgut’s newest novel, ‘In a Strange Room,’ is shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for fiction.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977 and holds a Masters degree in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins and a Masters degree in African Studies from Yale. Her first novel ‘Purple Hibiscus’ won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. It was also short-listed for the Orange Prize and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and long-listed for the Booker Prize.

Her second novel, ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ (2006) is set before and during the Biafran War. It won the 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Her latest book, ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’ (2009) is a collection of short stories and was shortlisted for the 2009 John Llewellyn-Rhys Memorial Prize.

Born and raised in Colombo, Karen Roberts worked in advertising in Colombo and Dubai, and now lives in California. Her first novel, ‘Flower Boy,’ was published by Random House in 2000. Her second book, ‘July,’ is set in Sri Lanka before and during the riots of July 1983. Roberts’ latest novel, ‘The Lament of the Dhobi Woman,’ was published in 2010. Her work addresses the various ethnic and class divisions of Sri Lanka, often through romantic relationships between characters from different sides of class or ethnic divides.

The fifth Galle Literary Festival takes place in the southern fortress city after which it is named, from 26 to 30 January 2011.

The winner of more than 400 major international awards, Emirates has served Sri Lanka since April 1986 and now operates 21 services a week between Colombo and Dubai, and daily flights to Singapore, making a total of 28 flights a week to and from the country.