Two transnational writers – with work rooted in the Balkans, Ireland and Scotland – appear together for the first time. Chris Agee reads from his fourth collection, Blue Sandbar Moon, ‘a micro-epic’ that explores with delicate precision the emotional and spiritual landscape of a life sustained in the ‘aftermath of aftermath’.
Kapka Kassabova reads the final chapter of her most recent non-fiction book, To the Lake, evoking Lake Ohrid (North Macedonia) and the icon-like ‘ghosts’ of our own lives, in a prose of utmost mythological, psychological and verbal beauty.
Virtual Crossways 2021 followed on from the Crossways Festivals of 2018 and 2019, which were staged in Glasgow and which featured writers and performers in Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Scots and English. The particular aim of Crossways is to foster and expand literary links across the North Channel.
In 2021, it brought together Irish writers from across the island of Ireland, together with their Scottish peers, underscoring the longstanding contribution of Irish people, history, language, culture and writing to both Glasgow and the Scottish nation.
Virtual Crossways 2021 was sponsored and organised by Irish Pages/Duillí Éireann. It received financial support from the Government of Ireland Emigrant Support Programme, Foras na Gaeilge, Colmcille, and Bòrd na Gàidhlig.
For more, visit www.crosswaysfestival.org.