A DISGRACED poet who was forced to step down as Oxford Professor of Poetry after a smear campaign against her rival for the job is to open this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival.
The Scotsman has learned that Ruth Padel will have the prestigious opening session that was last year occupied by Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Padel rocked the literary world with her shock resignation just nine days after her appointment. It em
erged she had e-mailed reporters about sexual harassment allegations against leading rival Derek Walcott.
She is listed in the Edinburgh International Book Festival's programme, which is officially unveiled today, and is set to speak on her great-great grandfather Charles Darwin.
One writer said yesterday: "Last year it was Gordon Brown. Now it's someone else having trouble with elections." Festival organisers declined to comment on Padel's appearance.
Padel appeared at the Hay Festival of Literature last month just hours after standing down, and denied doing anything wrong.
She admitted that she had sent e-mails to journalists, one alerting them to a book describing two cases of sexual harassment against him.
However, she denied any involvement in a "campaign" after it emerged 200 Oxford academics were anonymously sent photocopies from the book.
Top names at this year's festival include Margaret Atwood and Kate Atkinson, whose book When Will There Be Good News? recently won the coveted Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year at the British Book Awards.
Returning to the festival are Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell, author of the Wallander series, and Edinburgh's own fiction king Ian Rankin. A new guest is David Simon, creator of the television series The Wire.
Former Labour MP Baroness Shirley Williams is to deliver the Donald Dewar Memorial Lecture.
The book festival this year saw the loss of its director Catherine Lockerbie, who has stepped down temporarily for health reasons. Another key figure, administrative director Kath Mainland, stepped aside to become the director of the Fringe.
Richard Holloway, chairman of the Scottish Arts Council and former head of the Episcopalian Church in Scotland, has stepped in as temporary guest director.
However, staff have insisted the programme this year was largely shaped by Ms Lockerbie.
One of Britain's most popular poets, Carol Ann Duffy, returns to the festival as the newly appointed Poet Laureate.
The Welsh comedian Griff Rhys Jones is in the line-up, along with the American comic author Garrison Keillor.
Leading Scottish authors range from Alexander McCall Smith to Iain Banks, Christopher Brookmeyer, Booker Prize winner James Kelman, and AL Kennedy.
The bicentenary of Charles Darwin's birth falls this year along with the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work On the Origin of Species. Other writers exploring this year's Darwin theme are the Swiss philosopher and television presenter Alain de Botton, historian Antonia Fraser, Michael Boulter, who is author of Darwin's Garden, US Professor Jerry Coyne, author of Why Evolution is True.
