Edinburgh International Book Festival Themes: Women Behaving Badly

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This August, we celebrate women who challenge and confront the social stigmas and residual legacies from centuries of patriarchal rule and chastisement.

About Edinburgh International Book Festival Themes: Women Behaving Badly

Listed Under Books Events / Talks and Lectures Events

‘Maybe invite him to come up? No, too soon. You don’t think he’s a serial killer. That’s not it. It’s that you don’t want him to think you’re that kind of woman. The kind your mother warned you not to be.’ Writes Deesha Philyaw, in her fabulously feisty The Secret Lives of Church Ladies.

This August, we celebrate women who challenge and confront the social stigmas and residual legacies from centuries of patriarchal rule and chastisement. Who give voice to women’s desires and fears; hopes and pains – and put the experiences of women in plain sight. Who defy conventions and expectations, and rally against inequality and persecution, both past and present. Join us for some fearless and unbridled conversations.

Katherine Angel & Amia Srinivasan: The Politics of Sex
Saturday 13 August 16:30 - 17:30

Meg Mason: Femme Fatalistic
Sunday 14 August 15:45 - 16:45

Mieko Kawakami: Women’s Lives in Japan
Tuesday 16 August 12:15 - 13:15

Deesha Philyaw: Between Herself and God
Tuesday 16 August 18:15 - 19:15

Monica Ali: The Ties That Bind
Wednesday 17 August 14:30 - 15:30

Lizzy Stewart: The Female Gaze
Wednesday 17 August 18:15 - 19:15

Michèle Roberts: Three Women and the Artist Matisse
Thursday 18 August 15:30 - 16:30

Jenni Fagan: 'Geillis Duncan Has a Broomstick'
Thursday 18 August 16:00 - 17:00

Rosie Andrews & Francesca May: Seasons of the Witch
Friday 19 August 10:00 - 11:00

Laura Bates & Winnie M Li: Misogyny Laid Bare
Friday 19 August 14:30 - 15:30

Lynne Tillman: Snapshots of Truncated Love Affairs
Saturday 20 August 17:30 - 18:30

Joanne Harris & Margie Orford: Women in a Man’s World
Monday 22 August 11:30 - 12:30

Amy Liptrot: Traffic Islands Are for Lovers
Monday 22 August 19:00 - 20:00

Tessa Hadley & Charlotte Mendelson: The Process of Revealing
Tuesday 23 August 16:00 - 17:00

Siri Hustvedt: What Makes a Mother?
Tuesday 23 August 18:15 - 19:15

Hollie McNish & Joelle Taylor: Taboo-Busting Poets at Work
Tuesday 23 August 19:00 - 20:00

Sinéad Gleeson & Ottessa Moshfegh: A Woman's Music is Never Done
Wednesday 24 August 20:15 - 21:15

Lola Olufemi: Be the Change
Saturday 27 August 14:15 - 15:15

Julie Myerson & Guadalupe Nettel: The Inescapable Question of Motherhood
Monday 29 August 14:15 - 15:15

Maria Ressa: Democracy – Death by a Thousand Cuts?
Monday 29 August 16:00 - 17:00

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