2015 Festival

“The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.”

T S Eliot

..chan fhaighear lorg air fhuil rim bheò.

..his blood will not be traced while I live.

Hallaig, Sorley Maclean

 Welcome to Faclan 2015: The Hebridean Book Festival.

Faclan was founded in 2006 and now takes place during the celtic festival of samhainn – ‘beyond the equinox, the cusp of winter’. The theme for 2015 was ‘Blood’.

If the brain is the cradle of the mind and the body the vessel of life, blood is humanity’s eternal river. Its metaphor spans life and death, healing and killing, the after-life and life-after deep loss: From medicine to murder to family, from the operating theatre to the theatre of war. Through the prism of literature and memoir we can see, understand and appreciate the spectrum of human experience more profoundly. And at Faclan, exceptional people on the frontier of study and practice are here to share it with us.

Roddy Murray

Founding Director, Head of Visual Arts & Literature

The theme for Faclan 2015 was Fuil: Blood.

AUTHOR EVENTS

• Sgeulachdan ‘sa Chiaradh: Norman Campbell (Tormod a’ Bhocsair)
• H is for Hawk: Helen Macdonald
• The Brain and the Mind: Henry Marsh and Stephen Grosz
• Adventures in Human Being: Dr Gavin Francis
• Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Found – Francis Larson
• The Shepherds Life: James Rebanks
• A History of British Serial Killers: Professor David Wilson
• Comharradh: The Morse Code of Sheep Earmarks
• The Sign: Thomas de Wesselow
• Cuimhneachan: Remembrance – Gaelic Poetry of the Great War
• Jake’s Bones: Jake McGowan-Lowe
• The Glasgow Trilogy: Malcolm Mackay
• FACLAN OG (Young Faclan)
• How to Draw: Nick Sharratt

FILMS

• The English Surgeon
• The Shepherds of Berneray
• In Cold Blood
• Get Carter
• Badlands
• Throne of Blood
• The Masque of the Red Death: Halloween Club Night