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The Irrawaddy Literary Festival is an annual not-for-profit event which celebrates Burmese and international writers. It is planned to take place on alternate years in Mandalay and Yangon, Burma/Myanmar in the month of February or March. It has been described by former British Foreign Secretary William Hague as having “achieved more for freedom of speech in one afternoon than most of us manage in a lifetime.”〔http://irrawaddylitfest.com/〕 Previous venues include the Inya Lake hotel in Yangon, and Mandalay Hills Resort Hotel in Mandalay. The 2015 festival will be held at the Mandalay Hill Resort in Mandalay. The Festival was founded by Jane Heyn, wife of the former British Ambassador to Myanmar, in 2013, and is supported by Festival patron and Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Aung San Suu Kyi. It is organised by an independent Board of Directors comprising Burmese and non-Burmese members. All events are free with entry on a first-come, first-served basis. The Festival presents three days of discussion panels, workshops and individual talks from the authors, along with a variety of cultural activities: film screenings, photography and art exhibitions and street entertainers. Local businesses join the three-day event by setting up food and handicraft stalls. The participating international authors' books are imported and available at the Festival's abundance of bookstalls alongside the works of hundreds of Burmese writers. Writing Competitions in the months preceding the Festival and ‘Speakers’ Corner’, which is open to anyone throughout the Festival, encourage active participation from attendees. The Irrawaddy Literary Festival has received significant attention from global news and journalism organisations such as the BBC,〔http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21322997〕 CNN,〔http://travel.cnn.com/aung-san-suu-kyi-draws-thousands-myanmars-first-literary-festival-137776 〕 Wall Street Journal,〔http://blogs.wsj.com/scene/2013/02/01/myanmars-reforms-lead-to-its-first-literary-festival/ 〕 the Guardian,〔http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/03/burma-literary-festival 〕 the New York Times,〔http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/world/asia/07iht-letter07.html?_r=0 〕 and the New York Review of Books.〔http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jun/05/burma-new-start-mandalay/〕 ==2013== In 2013 the first Irrawaddy Literary Festival took place from the 1st to the 3rd of February in the Inya Lake Hotel in Yangon. Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi was the Festival’s key note speaker. Other participants included ''Wild Swans'' author Jung Chang, ''A Suitable Boy'' author Vikram Seth, and historian William Dalrymple. Burmese writers included Thant Myint-U, author of ''The River of Lost Footsteps'', and Pascal Khoo Thwe, author of ''From the Land of Green Ghosts''. Also in attendance was BBC journalist Fergal Keane, and photojournalist Thierry Falise. The Festival drew a crowd of approximately 10,000 attendees, and was considered a significant indication of the relaxation of Burmese censorship laws: a process which had begun in the preceding two years, following the release in November 2013 of Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Irrawaddy Literary Festival」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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