Latest news from the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival: 14-19 October, 2008

There is a buzz in the streets as Ubud moves into peak season. The majestic Royal cremation is over but the tourists still remain. The mantra, "Bali is back" is floating through the air like a warm current and there is a lovely feeling of optimism all around.The Festival program is bursting at the seams with new and exciting surprises that are bound to thrill. Writers are coming from near and far, with more than twenty countries represented, including Australia, Austria, Burma, Canada, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nigeria, Palestine, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, Turkey, The Netherlands, the UK and the USA.

John Berendt (left) will take us on an unforgettable journey into the lush Savannah of the Deep South. His acclaimed novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, is a true-life murder case about a range of offbeat characters that includes a well-bred Southern belle, gigolos and drag queens, con men and a voodoo priestess. Berendt will enthral his audience with this spellbinding and seductive story over a meandering three course meal at the Maya Resort.

Leading the Australians in the 2008 line-up is multi-award winning Aboriginal writer, social commentator and land rights activist, Alexis Wright who is originally from the Waanyi people in the highlands of the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. Wright's novel, Carpentaria was the recipient of the 2007 Miles Franklin Award and is an epic tale that tells of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance.

Faith Adiele is a Nigerian-Norwegian writer whose account of being the first black Buddhist nun in Thailand, Meeting Faith: An Inward Odyssey won the PEN/Beyond Margins Award. Alexis and Faith will discuss identity, telling truths and the importance of sharing stories.

Joining the Festival is Aravind Adiga, first-time author of The White Tiger, presenting one of my favourite books of the year. 'Unlike almost any other Indian novel you might have read in recent years, this page-turner offers a completely bald, angry, unadorned portrait of the country as seen from the bottom of the heap; there's not a sniff of saffron or a swirl of sari anywhere. Narrated by Balram, a self-styled "entrepreneur" who has murdered his employer, the book follows his progress from child labourer, via humiliation as a servant and driver, to a mysterious new life in Bangalore. Balram himself is an enticing figure, whose reasons for murder become completely understandable by the end, but even more impressive is the nitty-gritty of Indian life that Adiga unearths: the corruption, the class system, the sheer petty viciousness. The Indian tourist board won't be pleased, but you'll read it in a trice and find yourself gripped.' Sunday Times, London .

Aravind's book has recently been longlisted for the Booker Prize

On an up close and personal front, The Storytellers Club, celebrates the oldest art form in the world with an extraordinary night of old-fashioned storytelling to be held at the Casa Luna Festival Club. Our top writers and performers will make themselves comfortable, take the mic and spin exotic tales or unashamed lies in a night of myth, magic and mayhem. And for those who love brunch the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival will dish up an effervescent morning of fried mayhem and sunny shenanigans featuring the Festival's most brilliant, offbeat and somewhat 'unsavoury' stars in a morning called "Brilliant at Breakfast". In the words of Oscar Wilde, only dull people are "brilliant at breakfast". The Festival begs to differ, or perhaps to agree!

Go their website for more.