Caine Prize winning author Henrietta Rose-Innes will be reading at the Worlds Literature Festival on 20 June, kicking off the week-long festival alongside A LIFE APART author Neel Mukherjee and Costa Poetry Award shortlisted poet Kate Kilalea. The annual Worlds Literature Festival brings together writers from around the world in a week of readings, discussions and events. Among those appearing this year are J. M. Coetzee, M. J. Hyland, Naomi Alderman, Michelle de Kretser, Adam Thorpe, Christopher Merrill and there is also a strong South African contingent. Joining Coetzee and Henrietta Rose-Innes are C. J. Driver, Katherine Kilalea, Gabeba Baderoon, Zoe Wicomb, and poet and agent Isobel Dixon, who will also be giving a poetry workshop for the public during the festival.

Henrietta Rose-Innes is the author of the short story 'Poison', winner of the 2008 Caine Prize for African writing and the 2007 HSBC/PEN Short Story Prize, and described by the Guardian as 'a compellingly enigmatic story'. She has also written two novels, THE ROCK ALPHABET and SHARK'S EGG, and has been praised by J. M. Coetzee for her 'admirably taut clean prose'. Her latest short story collection, HOMING, and a forthcoming novel were bought at auction by Random House Struik's Umuzi imprint, with HOMING to be published in July 2010, and the novel, NINEVEH, to follow in 2011.

For more information on Henrietta Rose-Innes's event at the Worlds Literature Festival click here and for more general information on the festival, including the programme of events here

For details on Isobel Dixon's poetry workshop see here

Praise for Henrietta Rose-Innes:
 
'Rose-Innes is a writer almost in the Virginia Woolf mould - lateral of mind and poetic in her style of narration.'
-- Leon de Kock, Sunday Times
 
'Henrietta Rose-Innes is a master of the beautifully thought-out metaphor. Her prose is elegant and liquid, and carries you along throughout.'
-- Helen Brain, Cape Times
 
'Henrietta Rose-Innes writes an admirably taut, clean prose...a welcome addition to the new South African literature.' 
-- J M Coetzee