Capital's new chapter

Published on Saturday 25 June 2005 00:13

IN TWO DAYS' TIME, WHEN LA CRÈME DE la crème of the literary world gathers in the Royal Museum of Scotland for the presentation of the first Man Booker International Prize, a few people in the audience might just permit themselves a quiet smile of satisfaction.

For when Albanian novelist Ismal Kadar steps up to receive his 60,000 award on Monday night, it marks more than the formal debut of a prestigious prize honouring the world's best writer. In many ways this is also Edinburgh taking its first steps into the limelight as UNESCO city of literature.

The title was awarded in October last year, but only now is the full scale of the ambition behind the bid becoming apparent. The coup d'clat of Edinburgh hosting an international literary award of such magnitude as the Man Booker International - breaking London's monopoly on such events - is a spectacular start to the city's role as the first in what will soon become a network of UNESCO literary cities throughout the world.

But what will being UNESCO city of literature actually mean? Monday night's glittering gathering in the enormous Victorian birdcage of the Royal Museum's Main Hall may be the city's biggest-ever literary prize-giving, but it is unlikely to be the last, as other literary prizes are already being wooed to come to the city. Ambitions are large, untempered by cynicism. The world's biggest book launch? That's happening in Edinburgh Castle next month when JK Rowling unveils Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The Nobel Prize for Literature? Probably not - but what about the prize-winners making Edinburgh their first stop? And, as Edinburgh consolidates its premier place on the international literary circuit, how about other prize-winners making it their first stop, too? What about link-ups with Lyons, Cracow, Alexandria, Vancouver - those other cities already queuing up to follow in the capital's footsteps?

Such events not only add to Edinburgh's international appeal, they bring tourists in their wake. That means a new literary map from VisitScotland, two new literary guidebooks to the city within the year, better signposting, special walking tours using new mobile phone technology and better training for tourist guides. Original plans for a Treasure Island garden visitor attraction for families have - for now - been shelved, but, even outside the world's biggest book festival, the steady growth of a "literary quarter" in the city (Scottish Poetry Library, the revamped Storytelling Centre, Scottish Book Trust's new premises and a lovely secret garden just off the Royal Mile) still gives the literary tourist plenty to see.

In time there will be even more. Want to see Darwin's original manuscript of The Origin of Species or any of myriad treasures of the John Murray Archive at the National Library? Soon you will be able to. In time, perhaps, a revamped Writers Museum, maybe one day a writers' centre. Just dreams, but now ones that - thanks to the council's pledges last August to live up to its new title - stand an immeasurably greater chance of coming to fruition than they ever did before.

Talking of the council, what about its citizens; the people who may not be invited to the glittering prize-givings and already know (or think they know) just what their city has to offer tourists? What does the Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature (EUCL) mean for them?

This is where Sophy Dale, EUCL's newly appointed project manager, has the bulk of her work cut out. This week's decision to make Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped the first book in a new city-wide reading project starting in February might sound easy enough. But just look at what it entails. Will it fit into English or history (the Jacobites) on the school curriculum? Which publishers will be approached, which editions, how many of each? Are there any theatre companies whose work would tie in with Kidnapped - and any productions especially for children? What texts could be used for newly literate adults? Which film version will be shown, where and when? Which authors should be approached to talk to which reading groups about what Stevenson means to them? Will there be a Kidnapped trail in the city? What would it consist of and who should do it? How many books can be printed how cheaply so that how many tourists can get free copies? And, just as importantly as all of this: how can bookshops and libraries be encouraged to take more notice of that magic mountain of other Scottish books that have nothing to do with Kidnapped?

As EUCL stops being a vague aspiration and starts turning into something quantifiable, each of its book-related organisations has similarly detailed and specific plans. For Catherine Lockerbie, director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, it might be detailed planning for August's seminar on cities of literature. For Lorraine Fannin, director of the Scottish Publishers Association, it might be working on promotional material to encourage the foreign publishers she will meet in Frankfurt this autumn to publish Scottish writers, or updating the SPA's website, whose ever-increasing number of hits itself indicates burgeoning interest in Scottish writing. For Jenny Brown, the former Scottish Arts Council head of literature who has managed the project on a part-time basis for the last two years, it might mean talking to representatives of other would-be cities of literature about projects and exchanges, as she was doing in Lyons last week.

Three years ago, when these three women met James Boyle, then chairman of the SAC, such detailed forward planning wasn't remotely in the offing. Over lunch at Howie's restaurant in Bruntsfield they started talking about what they could do to boost Scottish writing and publishing. Literature was (and is) at the bottom of the Scottish Arts Council funding heap, then with 4 per cent and now with a whopping 6 per cent of its core budget - despite the fact that it is our strongest and most important indigenous art form.

That lunch could have been the occasion for just another whinge at the absurdity of the Scottish Executive's cultural strategy (in which Scottish literature didn't even rate a mention), or at the pitifully small level of the arts council budget devoted to it (proportionately, a tenth of what Canada spends). It could have been: but it wasn't.

Because in their heads as well as their hearts, each of the people round the table knew there was some need going unmet. For Lockerbie, the huge growth in book festival audiences, and the surging interest in Scottish literature she had picked up while chairing Scottish writers' events abroad, were proof that the past's pawky attitudes to supporting literature wouldn't do any more. For Fannin, the vibrancy of the Scottish publishing scene proved the same. So, for Brown, did the increased numbers of requests to translate Scottish literature and the sheer volume of funding applications from talented writers she had received while SAC head of literature. And for Boyle, a keen book-lover, thinking about promoting literature was probably the part of his job he enjoyed most.

By the time the four of them got up from the table, the decision to push for world city of literature status hadn't been made. But some things had. Edinburgh would be the focus of some sort of bid, but only as a gateway to the rest of Scotland. And whatever title it competed for, no-one wanted it to be just for a year of cultural fireworks that fizzled away to nothing.

What sort of title, though? At first, some people thought that Edinburgh should just declare itself a world city of literature and sit back. Why not? Its claims went deeper than being the city where half of the social sciences were founded, when literacy levels were the highest in the world; where the world's first bestseller (and first historical romances) were published; where the parliament passed the world's first compulsory education law in 1496; where the world's biggest book festival parks its tents each August; and where the university houses the world's oldest English department. On a merely British level, there's the first lending library (1725), the most influential literary journal (the Edinburgh Review) and a host of much-loved authors whose books grace any good bookshelf. Institutionally, historically, practically, any Edinburgh bid would have strength in depth.

All the same, calling yourself a world city of literature does look suspiciously like picking a fight with other book-loving cities. It's contentious: as soon as you get into Nobel Prize for Literature territory, for example, Dublin's 4-0 ahead. It puts the claimant immediately on the defensive. World City of Literature? Says who?

Says UNESCO, is the best possible answer: it's the only global cultural organisation, and it already validates Cities of Culture and World Heritage Sites. But the problem with UNESCO was that they'd never run a scheme like this. "A small group of individuals presenting an idea, having it accepted and then it being used as a template for an entire international network is the antithesis of what usually happens," says Lockerbie. "To invent the title, put all the hard work in, and find a route into a vast bureaucratic structure required quite a lot of persistence and ingenuity."

And even in that quote is the key to another reason that makes Edinburgh's bid unique. A small group of individuals - not a massive ministerial team, not a civic delegation armed with an open chequebook. A small group of individuals who'd all got their own demanding jobs to do, who didn't have time on their hands, who were doing what they did just because they believe in books, in Scotland, in Scotland's books.

"You should see some of the submissions UNESCO gets," says Brown. "They're so swish. But we never did have much money. We realised early on we'd better commission a couple of books to back the bid, and print 400 of them - copies for each of the 192 counties and a few more for the secretariat. Our experts gave freely of their time and the books do look superb, even though they only cost 11,000 to print. In fact the whole title was won for Edinburgh for only 200,000. And remember, that's a title that will be held in perpetuity."

By this time, the original gang of four book-lovers had expanded into rather larger coalition of the willing. From Glasgow came Karen Cunningham, head of the city's libraries department, to join Ian Rankin and the heads of Edinburgh's main literature organisations; in April, she was joined by non-Edinburghers Tom Devine, Stuart Cosgrove and Ali Smith. And although Edinburgh's Lord Provost, Lesley Hinds, has just joined as a trustee for Edinburgh City of Literature, that structuring is deliberate: now it's up and running, those fine words about the capital being a gateway to the rest of Scottish literature may actually, it seems, mean something.

Meanwhile, there's no shortage of literary projects to start work on: new writers' exchange programmes for various countries, from Scandinavia to Australia; or the launch of the Muriel Spark International Writing Fellowship, which will bring a major writer to Scotland for a month. It will be low-key, much of this work, but for a country that distrusts celebrating, that's probably fitting. All the same, on the anniversary of the city being awarded its title in October, the three founding mothers and one founding father of the first UNESCO city of literature might all just go out for lunch again.

I don't know which restaurant they'll go to, but this time it would be nice if someone else paid the bill. Even before the title was won, before the Man Booker International was won for Edinburgh, an independent survey into the economic benefits of the UNESCO came up with a figure of 2.1 million to Edinburgh, and a further 2.5 million to the rest of the country. It's even more now - and not just this year but next, and the year after that, and ...

But for now, on Monday night as 250 guests are piped into the Royal Museum's impressive Great Hall, for the most prestigious literary prize ever awarded in Britain, those four people are indeed entitled to celebrate. And even though it's dour, repressed old Edinburgh, just for once they might be allowed a moderately broad grin.

• Tickets are still available for a panel discussion on "How Do You Choose the Best Writer in the World?" with the Man Booker International Award judges John Carey, Alberto Manguel and Azar Nafisi on Monday, 27 June at 12.30pm in the Playfair Library. The event is free but ticketed. Tickets from the Hub on 0131-473 2000.