Alison Wearing

Alison Wearing is a writer and performer based in Canada. Her most recent book, Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter, is a memoir and solo play that the festival goers had the pleasure of witnessing. 

‘Confessions of a Fairy’s Daughter’ is a non-fiction tale of family life, of a coming of age tale about growing up with a gay father in the 1980’s, the impact of her father’s sexuality on her perfect family image and of truth, lies and ultimate acceptance. 

The memoir was shortlisted for the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Nonfiction, nominated for the RBC/Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction and became a national bestseller. The play itself has earned numerous awards, including Best Dramatic Script at New York City's United Solo, the largest festival of solo theatre in the world. 

At the Galle Literary Festival, Alison’s one woman performance of the play was raw, powerful and utterly moving and captivating. With very little sugar coating, Alison gave a truthful insight of what it her life and the years that passed as she and those around her came to accept her father’s sexuality. 

We spoke to the attendees of this session to see what they thought; 

“I’m so glad I came for it her performance. It wasn’t what I was expecting, I thought it was going to be a reading of her book but this was just so much more and it was a great experience.” - Aamina 

“Fantastic. It was just amazing and I feel so lucky to have seen something like this.” - Christine 

“It was just mindblowing. I had an expectation of what it would be like when I came but I didn’t think it would be this transparent and honest. I’m blown away” - Imanee  

 

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Amish Tripathi

“I stopped counting after 20 rejections” says Amish Tripathi as he talks about his quest to get his novel, ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ of his Shiva Trilogy, published. 

Much like the many who rejected J.K. Rowling’s novels, those who rejected Amish Tripathi’s novels stood to lose a great deal. Today, the Shiva Trilogy is the fastest selling book series in Indian publishing history with Amish being ranked among the top 100 celebrities in India four times in a row by Forbes India. 

At his session at the Festival, Amish spoke enthusiastically about God and atheism and the challenges faced when writing about India’s most devoted on gods. He deliberated on India and the views by many about its gods and the history. 

When asked if his writing is affected by criticism, Amish comments that ‘Criticism is great, it can always give you a different view on your writing but at the end of the day I always write what I feel is right and whatever the critics are – that won’t change.” 

Speaking to Amish after the session, he tells us that he felt the session went ‘really well’. “The audience was a high quality audience who asked me a lot of intelligent questions and I just loved talking to an audience like that” 

We also spoke to some of the audience members who attended the session to gather a few comments; 

“I thought the session was very exciting. I hadn’t heard of the author until I saw the programme so I bought a book before attending the session. I never knew that Indian mythology could be so good and interesting. It was great to hear the background of the novel” - Murtaza 

“It was very nice. I really liked it and I like that his books are very relevant to contemporary India” - Alka 

“It was really good!” - Janmash 

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 Charles Uzzel Edwards 

Street artist known as Pure Evil presented his ‘Nightmare Series’ collection at the Galle Literary Festival. 

Speaking to us about his exhibition, Edwards divulge that the series started out with a print of Liz Taylor which when she died sold rapidly as her death felt like the death of a golden era.  The prints displayed were inspired by a copy village in China which helped him to start his own factory producing images he wished to create. 

On the surface of the images, it looks happy but Edwards reveals that if the viewer looks deeper, there is a sense of darkness to it. 

“For example, my image of the statue of Liberty has a tear drop to it. That’s because for me, the Statue has always been a symbol of welcome for immigrants and today, with the political status of America, it is no longer such a symbol” he explains. 

The series includes images of Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy and Elvis Presley showcasing that despite knowing about them, we don’t really know them at all. 

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Sara Wheeler 

Sara Wheeler is a British travel author and biographer, noted for her accounts of Polar Regions. 

She spoke about her travels to the Arctic, the people she met, the history she gathered and her observations. 

“You can’t spend time in the arctic and come back ignorant of glacial melting and the rapid changes in the arctic. Anyone denying climate change is wrong” 

She stressed upon the rapid changes in the Arctic due to global warming and called polar bears the ‘poster boys of climate change’. 

We caught up with the travel author after the session and she expressed her joy of having a great audience for her session. “It was impressive that the room was full. It’s a really good turn out and I’m very impressed!” 

We also spoke to some of the audience members who attended the session to gather a few comments; 

“It was fascinating. A real eye opener about global warming and the arctic community” - Zainab 

“It’s not a normal story so I really wanted to attend this session. It’s an unusual experience especially for a woman to explore the Arctic so it was great to hear her!” - Nilani 

“The inhospitable nature of the Arctic was bought to the tropics so elegantly and spiritedly that it  was a memorable session” - Dyan 

“Not what we were expecting but having been to the session it was a good view and interesting to listen to” - Hedwig 

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PHOTOGRAPHS by Zeeshan Akram Jabeer