For bibliophiles, a dream weekend

Not to throw cold water on a celebration of authors -- including Mitch Albom, Alice Walker and Dave Eggers -- but novelist Russell Banks intends to give voice to the silenced writer at this weekend’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

On Saturday, on a panel called “Voices of Exile: Courage to Write,” Banks will talk about his work as president of the nonprofit International Network of Cities of Asylum, a Paris-based group that helps writers worldwide who are under threat of death, torture or imprisonment for their writings. Banks succeeds Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Prize-winning poet and playwright and former political prisoner in Nigeria, and novelist Salman Rushdie, who, in a 1989 fatwa, was condemned to death for allegedly insulting Islam in his novel “The Satanic Verses.” Soyinka also will be on the panel, which will address threats to freedom of expression in today’s political climate.

“There are writers all over the world whose lives are at stake because of what they write, who need to be provided with safety and protection,” Banks said.

Among the writers who, with the network’s help, have found refuge in the U.S. are poet and novelist Syl Cheney-Coker, who fled Sierra Leone, and critic and artist Er Tai Gao, who was sentenced to years of hard labor in China. Both now live in Las Vegas. Banks hopes to enlist volunteers and government officials in the campaign to place exiled and other persecuted writers in Southern California or other areas of the country.

Other panels at the annual festival, which will be held at UCLA, will spotlight politics and current affairs. Panelists will include Arianna Huffington, John W. Dean and Anne Applebaum, who recently won the Pulitzer Prize for her nonfiction book “Gulag: A History.”

On Saturday, last year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for nonfiction, Samantha Power, will moderate a panel on “The Seduction of War.” Speakers will include ex-Marine Anthony Swofford, author of the bestseller “Jarhead,” which chronicles his days during the Persian Gulf War.

“What you have on the panel are people who have fought in war, people who have covered war and people who have thought of war; most of us as citizens are in the latter category,” Power said. “What it can do is give us a window inside the psyche of people who are bringing us our daily news stories and risking their lives to do so, and of course, the grunts who are dealing with the danger and terror and tedium and solidarity of life in combat.”

The festival, the largest of its kind on the West Coast, is expected to draw more than 150,000 people and about 280 exhibitors, including specialty booksellers and publishers. Organizers put together panels on current events as one way to keep “topical, try to find out what’s going on in the book world, what readers are interested in, what’s going on in the world around us,” said Mike Lange, a Times spokesman.

More than 400 writers will participate in 95 panels, readings and book signings. Seven stages will feature events such as book and poetry readings, children’s storytelling and cooking demonstrations. Several celebrities will make appearances. They include, on Saturday, Jay Leno, who will read from his children’s book, “If Roast Beef Could Fly,” at 11:05 a.m.; and Julie Andrews, who will discuss and sign her children’s books, “Dumpy’s Apple Shop” and “Dumpy to the Rescue,” at 12:55 p.m.

Featured authors will include Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction writer Edward P. Jones, plus George P. Pelecanos and Tobias Wolff. The Poetry Stage will present Carol Muske-Dukes, Henri Cole and Dana Gioia.

One of the festival highlights will be the Los Angeles Times Book Prize awards ceremony on Saturday. Actor Michael York will emcee the event at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Tickets are $14 each.

There is no admission charge for any other festival events, but tickets are required for most discussions and lectures. The free tickets will be available at participating Ticketmaster outlets. Events often fill up quickly, so organizers recommend that festival-goers obtain tickets as soon as possible.

Among the offerings:

Saturday:

* 10 a.m., “Classic Crime,” with Stephen J. Cannell, John Connolly, Christopher Darden and Dick Lochte. Moderator: Connie Martinson.

* 1 p.m., “Moving Pictures and the Birth of Modernism,” with Leonard Maltin, Richard Schickel, Rebecca Solnit and Jeffrey Vance. Moderator: Kenneth Turan.

* 2:30 p.m., “From Granta to McSweeney’s: Can Independent Magazines Survive?” with Dave Eggers, Edwin Frank, Tamara Straus and Lawrence Weschler. Moderator: Kit Rachlis.

Sunday:

* 1 p.m., A. Scott Berg, introduced by Steve Wasserman.

* 1:30 p.m.: “Law and Disorder: Gangs, the LAPD and the Pursuit of Justice,” with Miles Corwin, Joe Domanick, Tom Hayden, Jill Leovy and Thane Rosenbaum. Moderator: David Lauter.

* 1:30 p.m.: “Fiction: Life Among the Ruins,” with Chris Abani, Khaled Hosseini and Micheline Aharonian Marcom. Moderator: Gina Nahai.

*

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

Where: UCLA campus

When: Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Price: Free; parking, $7

Contact: 1-800-LATIMES, Ext. 7BOOK; latimes.com/festivalofbooks