Miranda July at Manchester Literature Festival at Central Library

Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor

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An Evening with Miranda July

11 June 2024

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

a white woman with swept back culy auburn hairs stares into the camera.  she is in a white room near an air conditioning vent and is wearing a faded denim jacket
Miranda July. Photo: Elizabeth Weinberg
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The Manchester Literature Festival spring programme continues into summer and June with Miranda July. Confused? Don’t be (or at least don’t let on). It’s a rare chance to catch the witty and original US-based writer, film-maker and artist Miranda July in town, as she discusses her new novel, All Fours, with writer and fellow Vermonter Kate Feld.

Miranda July is the author of four books including the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award-winning short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You, published in 2007, and the non-fiction story collection It Chooses You (2011). Her debut novel The First Bad Man came out in 2015 and All Fours is her second novel. She has also written and directed three feature films, while also starring in the first two, The Future (2011) and 2005’s Me and You and Everyone We Know, which won the prestigious Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize at Sundance. Her most recent film, Kajillionaire, came out in 2020.

In All Fours, a semi-famous artist declares her intention to drive cross-country from West Coast Los Angeles to East Coast New York. Instead, she checks into a motel half an hour from the home she shares with her husband and child and begins a reinvention which is to have a profound impact on her life. In Miranda July’s unique, funny and tender voice, All Fours explores the societal boundaries placed on middle-aged women through desire, sex, perimenopause and motherhood, questioning what freedom might look like within those constraints.

George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo, and previous guest at Manchester Literature Festival, describes the book as: “A giddy, bold, mind-blowing tour de force by one of our most important literary writers. Funny, honest, rich with the energy of the mind, All Fours will jump-start your relation to language and cause you to think anew about the nature of desire.”

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Where to go near Miranda July at Manchester Literature Festival at Central Library

St Peters Square Manchester
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St Peter’s Square

St Peter’s Square is a public space in Manchester – home to the city’s iconic library, town hall, Pankhurst statue, art gallery and famous Midland Hotel.

Manchester Art Gallery. Photo by Andrew Brooks
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Manchester Art Gallery

The Charles Barry-designed, Grade I-listed Manchester Art Gallery is one of the city’s leading galleries and is back open for visitors once more.

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Ban Di Bul

Ban Di Bul is a longstanding Korean restaurant in the very centre of Manchester.

Chinatown
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The Alan

This high-end city-centre restaurant has an excellent afternoon tea option that more than matches up to the superb main menu.

Salut Wines
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Salut Wines

Salut wines pride themselves in offering “wider horizons beyond the safe choices.” With 42 wines by the glass and a regularly changing selection of bottles in their Enomatic wine preservation machines (or  “wine jukebox,” as they’re colloquially known), this is one of be best bars in Manchester for exploring new vintages.

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Friska

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Don Giovanni

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