Global ambition

The Edinburgh international book festival proudly proclaims its global ambition – it's right there in the name. And some of the most exciting writers from all over the world are indeed to be found here, wandering from tent to tent.

We brought in the American novelist Sergio De La Pava, who sets a bomb under the legal thriller with his mighty debut, A Naked Singluarity. He says he's "distrustful" of literary prizes, despite winning the PEN / Robert W Bingham prize last week. He explains why he couldn't just write a John Grisham novel, how he wound up publishing A Naked Singularity himself after a slew of agents declined to take it on, and why authors – and publishers – need to be ambitious.

We also flagged down Rawi Hage, who's here at the festival with his story of a nomadic cab driver, Carnival. He tells us how he still feels like a wanderer himself, more than 20 years after moving to Canada from Lebanon, confesses to an intimate habit and reveals the secret to his fiction.

Reading list

A Naked Singularity by Sergio de la Pava (Maclehose)

Carnival by Rawi Hage (Hamish Hamilton)

Richard Lea

Iain Chambers