Franschhoek Literary Festival 2015: Eight international authors and why you should see them

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Karin Schimke looks at who's who in the internationally flavoured programme at this weekend's Franschhoek Literary Festival.

Apart from the fact that you might have read their books – or seen the movies based on their books – you might want to get yourself to Franschhoek this weekend for that one thing that always gives a bit of perspective: the outsider's view. There are 22 authors representing eight countries outside South Africa. Here are some of them:

Eshkol Nevo (Israel) has written several best-selling novels, many of which have won awards. His latest novel, Neuland, will be translated into several languages this year.

John Boyne (Ireland) is the author of the highly affecting novel about the son of a concentration camp commandant who befriends a Jewish boy inside the camp. The boy in the striped pyjamas has been made into a movie. The latest of his nine adult novels is A history of loneliness.

See them because Nevo and Boyne will be grasping a particularly thorny nettle when Victor Dlamini asks them, as well as Mandla Langa, author of The texture of shadows and other novels, how sensitively they all tread when they approach the contentious subjects around which they've built some of their fiction.

Event: Elephants in the Room, 1 pm in the Church Hall on Sunday, 17 May.

Jackie Kay (Scotland) is a prolific and award-winning poet and short-story writer and was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002. Her memoir, Red dust road, will be the focus of a special event with poet Phillippa Yaa de Villiers.

Mamle Kabu (Ghana) is a writer of Ghanaian and German parentage and was born and raised on the African continent. She won the Burt Award for African Literature for her young adult novel The Kaya-Girl (published under the name Mamle Wolo), and has been shortlisted for a number of other literary prizes, including the Caine Prize.

See them because they will be discussing whether it's possible, as black writers, to "just write" and escape what Toni Morrison called "the white gaze". Victor Dlamini will chair the panel, which also features Thando Mgqolozana (Hear me alone).

Event: Colouring in the Lines, 4 pm in the Hospice Hall on Saturday, 16 May.

Helon Habila (Nigeria) is a professor of creative writing, and his novels, poems and short stories have won many awards. He was the first Chinua Achebe Fellow at Bard College in New York.

See him because he will be discussing how easy – or not – it is to write from the point of view of the "other". Otherness is a hot topic right now, and Victor Dlamini will also be quizzing Carol Campbell and Craig Higginson about crossing lines in fiction, writing from a perspective that does not overlap with the author's own gender, race or class.

Event: Drawing Lines, 10 am in Protea Hotel 1 on Sunday, 17 May.

Sarah Waters (UK) is the author of the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted Fingersmith, which was later made into a television series. Two of her other books were also nominated for the prestigious prize and she's been voted Author of the Year at the British Book Awards and was Stonewall Writer of the Year in 2014. Her most recent book, The paying guests, has recently been shortlisted for The Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

See her because she will be in conversation with Damon Galgut (Arctic summer), John Boyne (The history of loneliness and The boy in the striped pyjamas) when Rebecca Davis asks them to talk about how the lives of gay people were reflected by writers a century ago and how things have changed since.

Event: The Straight Gaze, 11.30 am in the Congregational Church on Saturday, 16 May.

Franck Thilliez (France) is a computer engineer turned novelist who wrote Syndrome E, a scientifically minded thriller about two detectives investigating the sudden onset of blindness after they had viewed an obscure film from the 1950s.

Olivier Truc (France) is a journalist who has written several books. The most recent is a thriller steeped in Nordic and Sami culture featuring two officers of the Reindeer Police. It's called Forty days without shadow.

See them because Jenny Crwys-Williams will be talking to them and to local crime superstar Deon Meyer about their lives and their work.

Event: Brothers In Crime, 10 am in the Congregational Church on Sunday, 17 May.

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