“John Hemingway’s incisive and moving portrayal cases the Nobel Prize-winning author’s work in a startling new light. The Hemingway Legacy will never be the same.” – poet John Lyons

Author and translator John Hemingway is blessed and cursed with a famous family – his grandfather was the brilliant but tormented Ernest Hemingway; his father was Ernest’s troubled youngest son Gregory. Both men suffered from bipolar disorder and had an antagonistic relationship that coloured John’s relationship with his father.

In his powerful memoir Strange Tribe, John confronts his family’s legacy by delving into the letters between Ernest and Gregory and explores how his own childhood in Miami and Montana shaped the man he has become.

Language: English

It’s time to award the eagerly anticipated 2017 Montegrappa Prize. This prestigious writing competition open to UAE-based writers has an exceptional record, with five publishing deals in four years.

The competition’s judge, literary agent Luigi Bonomi, is joined this year by two winners who have recently had their first novel published: Lucy Strange, whose children’s novel The Secret of Nightingale Wood came out in 2016 to immediate critical acclaim, and Charlotte Butterfield, whose Me, You and Tiramisu will be launched at this Festival.

This year we also have a very special guest – John Hemingway, author of Strange Tribe: A Family Memoir and grandson of Ernest Hemingway, will present the first-place winner with a limited edition Montegrappa ‘Hemingway: The Writer’ pen – one of only 100 to be created.

Please note that anyone who entered the competition can attend this session free of charge.

Language: English