FOR Scotland's literati – the avid readers, the poets, the novelists, the publishers, the critics, the administrators, the illustrators, the booksellers – the announcement was keenly anticipated.
And when the name of the new director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival was finally made known last week there was a blizzard of phone calls, texts and e-mails dissecting the news. Unfortunately for Nick Barley, the man who had landed on
e of Scotland's most prestigious jobs, the tone was one of consternation rather than enthusiasm.
After a year in which it was feared the festival might be losing its direction, the arts world was hoping for a visionary leader; a literary heavyweight, with international contacts and a fresh, new approach to reinvigorate it. But was Barley – the former editor of The List magazine and the man in charge of The Lighthouse (Scotland's Centre for Architecture and Design) when it went into receivership, with the loss of 57 jobs, earlier this year – really the one to guide it to even greater heights?
Barley, from Yorkshire, cites his experience as a publisher, and as someone who has commissioned writers in the past, as evidence he is up to the challenge. "People may be surprised, but if they look they will see that I have a history of cultural collaborations and a history of commissioning new writing," he said. And Professor Willy Maley – the former head of creative writing at Glasgow University, who has collaborated with Barley in the past – welcomed his appointment as brash, fresh and inspired.
But some in the wider arts world wonder if the 43-year-old truly has the organisational talent and love of books the role requires, while others are aghast he is getting his hands on another great cultural institution after the Lighthouse's demise.
"Barley's appointment is all anyone in the arts world is talking about," says one insider. "But far from being thrilled, they are starting off from a position of scepticism. Even those who are not out and out opposed to him are saying he has a lot to prove, so there's going to be no honeymoon period – it's going to be tough."
Hovering over all this is a vague and unsubstantiated sense in some quarters that Barley – whose wife Fiona Bradley is the director of Edinburgh's Fruitmarket Gallery – owes his good fortunes to being part of an elite arts coterie.
So great has the backlash against his appointment been that within days, a Facebook site had been set up as a conduit of dissent. Posters – who seemed for the most part to be friends of ex-Lighthouse employees – vented their spleen in a way that has not been seen in the Scottish arts world since the days of controversial Glasgow Museums Director Julian Spalding. In among the bile, though, is a serious allegation: that The Lighthouse failed not – as Barley claims – as a result of the recession and lack of government support, but because of inadequate stewardship.
So has the Edinburgh International Book Festival taken a reckless gamble that will put its future and reputation in jeopardy? Or is Barley a perfectly good candidate, who has fallen foul of a powerful combination of sour grapes and an entrenched suspicion of anyone considered to be an outsider?
Since its launch in 1984, The Edinburgh International Book Festival has carved itself a place as the biggest book festival in the world, drawing 200,000 visitors a year. It has gone from strength to strength, particularly in the past nine years under the direction of Catherine Lockerbie, reaching its pinnacle three years ago when three Nobel prize winners – Seamus Heaney, Harold Pinter and Joseph Stiglitz – were the star attractions.
This year there were 750 writers and more than 700 events, but a combination of circumstances, including Lockerbie's health problems, contrived to make it a slightly lacklustre affair. Although 80 per cent of tickets were sold, the only big names were Margaret Atwood and Douglas Coupland, and many felt there was too great a reliance on publishers' schedules. In addition, those attending seemed to be getting older. "You looked out on the audience, and it was just a sea of grey hair," said one insider.
Nick Barley was not one of the first names in the frame when Lockerbie announced she was standing down. Those initially floated as serious contenders included Geraldine D'Amico, who runs Jewish Book Week in London, Alex Clark, former editor of literary magazine Granta and Mary Shields, a long-time programme director of the Fringe's giant Assembly venue.
Supporters of Barley point to a range of achievements which, they say, show the Kent University graduate is right for the job. He once ran his own publishing company, August Publications. During his time on The List, he launched the Edinburgh Festival Guide and a quarterly contemporary cultural magazine called Map. He set up The List festival writing awards in association with the Writers' Guild. And he caused a stir with his Top 100 Greatest Scottish Books, which, though much-derided for its inclusion of works such as George Orwell's 1984 (written on Jura) and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (published in Blackwood's Magazine), at least got people talking about literature.
Later on, when The Lighthouse staged Shifts – an exhibition which speculated on the future of the Central Belt – Barley oversaw a project to commission contemporary writers including Pat Kane, Zoë Strachan and Laura Marney to write new work about their own experiences of the urban landscape. So far, so impressive. Yet
at The List, he is remembered by some as a mediocre manager. During his time there, he presided over swingeing cuts to the editorial department which left staff feeling "let down and demoralised". And yet Maley told Scotland on Sunday: "I've been involved with him twice, once knowingly, and once unknowingly – the first when he asked me to compile the Top 100 Greatest Scottish Books and the second when I edited a part of the Shifts exhibition. Both were interesting, out-of-the-box ideas.
"You have to remember there is an ambassadorial role to being director of the Book Festival. I found him to be charismatic, innovative and very media savvy."
It was as executive director at The Lighthouse – a job he took on in 2003 – that Barley seems to have provoked most resentment. Insiders claim that in his first year, he dismantled existing teams, micro-managed everyone from senior project managers to mid-level support staff and demanded that he have final sign-off on every piece of work, causing projects to go over deadline.
Earlier this year, The Lighthouse went into liquidation with debts of £220,000. To what extent Barley could be held accountable for that may never be established. According to one school of thought the venture was already blighted by a flawed business model, which depended on it raising money from commercial sources.
When the recession started to bite, it was hit hard. First the Government withdrew £2.25m funding for the proposed second Six Cities Design Festival. Then important tenants – such as furniture firm Vitra – pulled out and conferences dried up.
But there are others who claim the venue started to run into trouble only when Barley took over. In particular, they say a massive overspend on Scotland's contribution to the Venice Biennale which exacerbated The Lighthouse's financial problems was partly due to his insistence on bringing in someone from outside to project manage it.
Last week, Barley said he took full responsibility for what happened. "But no-one could be blamed for the way the recession hit commercial revenues, critical to the institution's income," he added.
"It was a horrible situation. The worst thing about it was such talented people, working such long hours, doing all they possibly could, and it wasn't possible to save it. And that's what was traumatic about it."
Despite the controversy raging around him, Nick Barley was in fine fettle as he prepared to head for the Frankfurt Book Festival last week.
In a series of interviews, he set out his vision for the future of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Acknowledging the need to go "off-diary" from publishers' schedules, he said taking a "thematic" approach would lend both a greater cohesiveness and an excitement to the programme. "It is an approach that allows you to find authors you didn't know you were interested in," he added.
Barley has also talked of using his design expertise to give its programme a high-impact layout and expanding its year-round internet presence – a move felt to be long overdue.
Aware feelings are running high, the book festival has dismissed what happened at The Lighthouse as something in the past which has no bearing on Barley's new role. "Nick has strong literary contacts, understands funding, organisational dynamics, literary networks," chairman Susan Rice told Scotland on Sunday. "He is also an avid reader which, for me, is the prime literary strength we need.
"He has a vision for the book festival, he understands what it is and has become and places great value on that. But every organisation has to move forward, or it risks falling back, and we believe that Nick is the right person to do that."
As she spoke, the carping continued. But – with his enthusiasm for the post beyond doubt – Barley may well confound his critics, and the back-biting may stop as quickly as it started.
"This whole thing has the strong smack of mean-spirited, small-minded nonsense-mongering about it characteristic of the worst aspects of the Scottish literary scene – the bitterati - and the sooner it dies down the better," Maley said. "A year from now, with a first festival under his belt, this controversy may well be forgotten."
Until then, it seems, the jury is out.
