First Group of Speakers Announced for the Gibunco Gibraltar International Literary Festival
The first group of speakers have been confirmed for this year’s Gibunco Gibraltar International Literary Festival which will be taking place from 17th-19th November 2023. The first speakers announced are:
Author: Tanya Goodin
Book Title: My Brain Has Too Many Tabs Open
Biography: Tanya is an author, speaker, and podcaster on the subject of our complicated relationship with technology. Her books ‘My Brain Has Too Many Tabs Open’, ‘Off’ and ‘Stop Staring at Screens’ are published in ten languages. An award-winning digital entrepreneur prior to her writing career, she started her online business three years before Google launched, and founded digital wellbeing movement Time To Log Off long before concerns about excessive screen use first appeared on the public radar. Tanya is an expert in the field of tech-life balance and a regular media commentator, helping a global audience forge a healthier, happier relationship with their digital devices. She is currently researching for a Masters in AI (artificial intelligence) ethics at the University of Cambridge.
Author: Ann Cleeves
Book Title: The Raging Storm
Biography:
Ann Cleeves is the author of more than thirty-five critically acclaimed novels, translated into over 20 languages, and in 2017 was awarded the highest accolade in crime writing, the CWA Diamond Dagger. She is the creator of popular detectives Vera Stanhope, Jimmy Perez and Matthew Venn, who can be found on television in ITV’s Vera, BBC One’s Shetland and ITV's The Long Call respectively. The TV series and the books they are based on have become international sensations, capturing the minds of millions worldwide.
Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of ‘Murder Squad’, working with other British northern writers to promote crime fiction. Ann also spends her time advocating for reading to improve health and wellbeing and supporting access to books. In 2021 her Reading for Wellbeing project launched with local authorities across the North East. Her latest book is The Raging Storm is the third in her Matthew Venn series. She lives in Northumberland where the Vera books are set and was awarded an OBE for services to Reading and Libraries in 2022.
Author: Nigel Biggar
Book Title: Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning
Biography:
“One of the leading living Western ethicists” (John Gray, New Statesman, November 2020), Nigel Biggar is Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford. His most recent books are Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2023), What’s Wrong with Rights? (2020) and In Defence of War (2013). In the press, he has written on freedom of speech in The Times, on the Iraq war in the Financial Times, on the possibility of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Northern Ireland in the Irish Times, on Scottish independence in Standpoint magazine, and on the morality of Britain’s nuclear deterrent in The Scottish Review.
He has lectured at the Royal College of Defence Studies, London; the UK Defence Academy, Shrivenham; the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr, Hamburg; the US Military Academy, West Point; the US Naval Academy, Annapolis; and the National Defense University, Washington, DC. Subject to two attempts to cancel him because of his even-handed views of the British Empire, he has been at the forefront of the battle for free speech in British universities and became chairman of the board of the Free Speech Union in early 2020. In 2021 he was appointed C.B.E. for his “services to higher education”.
Author: Rory Cellan-Jones
Book Title: Ruskin Park
Biography:
Rory Cellan-Jones was a BBC journalist for 40 years, and as Technology Correspondent became the UK's guide to the digital revolution, from the birth of the smartphone to the promise and perils of AI. He is now an independent technology consultant, writer and podcaster. He is the author of Dot Bomb: The Rise and Fall of Dot Com Britain (2001), Always On: Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era (2021), and Ruskin Park: Sylvia, Me and the BBC.
Author: Puneet Bhandal
Book Title: Starlet Rivals and Melody Queen
Biography:
Puneet Bhandal is the author of the Bollywood Academy fiction series - the first fiction series centred around a Bollywood stage school which is situated on Kohinoor Island off the coast of Mumbai. Starlet Rivals and Melody Queen are the first titles in the series. Puneet is a former Bollywood film journalist and a huge fan of Indian cinema. She has also worked for many other fashion and business magazines over the course of a career spanning 20 years.
Puneet is also the owner of an occasionwear boutique where she gets to design red-carpet dresses. Her gowns have been modelled by real-life stars including Miss World contestants. She was inspired to write the Bollywood Academy books so readers could glimpse the enchanting and glamorous world of the Hindi film industry. She is now writing and planning two further fiction titles, including an adult thriller.
Further announcements will be made in the coming weeks. Tickets will go on sale on 1st October 2023 on Buytickets.gi and via the Box Office at the Garrison Library.
