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Article: Author! Author! (literary festivals in Britain)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- June 11, 1994
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IT IS easy to laugh at the literary events which are sprouting up all over Britain. At John Mortimer, the creator of Rumpole of the Bailey, picking his way across a muddy sheep-meadow on the Welsh border in ill-chosen clothes--suit, smart shoes, raspberry-pink shirt and marigold-yellow floral tie--and bleating plaintively: "Where's the hospitality tent?" At Jilly Cooper, a writer of steamy romances, bravely agreeing to substitute for Kurt Vonnegut when the author of "Cat's Cradle" and "Slaughterhouse Five" walked out on his readers, some of whom had travelled a few hundred miles to hear him, at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature. At Paul Muldoon, an Irish poet billed as ...