Literary titan Margaret Atwood will be among 10 international writers headlining the 23rd Singapore Writers Festival (SWF), organisers announced yesterday.
Atwood wrote dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and its Booker Prize-winning sequel The Testaments (2019).
She will be joined by Naomi Klein, author of seminal economic and environmental books such as The Shock Doctrine (2007) and No Logo (1999); art historian Sarah Lewis; and novelist, critic and photographer Teju Cole.
The festival had previously announced it would be featuring award-winning writer Zadie Smith, graphic novelist Art Spiegelman, science-fiction pioneer Liu Cixin and Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Sharon Olds and Tracy K. Smith.
This is the highest number of international headliners that the festival, organised by the National Arts Council, has ever featured.
It will run from Oct 30 to Nov 8 in its first fully digital edition due to Covid-19. Its theme this year is Intimacy.
Other new commissions that the festival announced include Taragak, a short film series by the Singapore Minangkabau Association, and The Beauty Of Spring, two short films based on stories by pioneer Tamil writers Rama Kannabiran and Ma Ilangkannan, directed by K. Rajagopal.
BOOK IT / SINGAPORE WRITERS FESTIVAL 2020
WHERE: Sistic Live
WHEN: Oct 30 to Nov 8
ADMISSION: Digital festival pass at $20 or $12 (concessions) from swf2020-live.sistic.com. Separately ticketed programmes are at $10
