KWAME Anthony Appiah is to chair the 2018 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for its 50th year.
The philosopher, cultural theorist and novelist has been named chair of the judges for the prize’s 50th anniversary year.
He will lead a panel of five judges in choosing the best novel published between 1 October 2017 and 30 September 2018.
Appiah is Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University.
He was born in London in 1954, and grew up in Ghana.
He studied philosophy at the University of Cambridge and taught at the University of Ghana before receiving his doctorate in Philosophy from Cambridge in 1982.
He is an Honorary Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, has taught at Yale, Cornell, Duke, Harvard and Princeton universities, and lectured at many other institutions around the world.
In 2012, President Obama presented him with the National Humanities Medal, in a ceremony at the White House.
He is also the author of three mystery novels featuring the barrister-sleuth Sir Patrick Scott.
The 12 or 13 titles longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize – ‘The Man Booker Dozen’ – will be announced in July 2018.
www.themanbookerprize.com
THE novelist and playwright Alan Bissett is to tour his show The Moira Monlogues and its sequel in the spring of 2018.
(More) Moira Monologues premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2017, winning a prestigious Fringe First Award.
Bissett will tour both plays – the original and the sequel ¬ ¬– as a double bill throughout the UK in 2018, including on the main stage of the Citizens’ Theatre in Glasgow on Mother’s Day (as part of the Glasgow Comedy Festival), and for his (and Moira’s) home crowd at Falkirk Town Hall in March.
The show will also visit Portsoy, Newtonhill, Stirling, Edge Hill University near Liverpool, Cove, Livingston and Paisley.
Bissetts novels include Boyracers, The Incredible Adam Spark, Death of a Ladies’ Man and Pack Men.
Since its initial production at the Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, in 2009, the original Moira Monologues has toured the UK extensively, with sold-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe (2009 & 2016 revival), and the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre, as well as performances in Serbia, Canada and China.
www.citz.co.uk
MOGWAI is to perform an exclusive set at The Quay Sessions at BBC Scotland.
The band's ninth studio album, Every Country’s Sun, was released on their own Rock Action label in September and gave them their highest position yet on the Official Album Charts at #6.
Ahead of the band’s biggest hometown show to date at Glasgow’s Hydro, presenter Roddy Hart will welcome them to BBC Scotland’s Pacific Quay HQ to perform a gig for an invited audience and a conversation with guitarist Stuart Braithwaite.
For this BBC performance, Cat Myers of Glasgow duo Honeyblood takes on drumming duties, joining Braithwaite, bassist Dominic Aitchison, guitarist/keyboardist Barry Burns and guitarist Alex Mackay.
It is being shown on BBC Two Scotland from 11.05pm on Friday December 8.
www.mogwai.co.uk
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