Settling down to early morning coffee in Causeway Bay, Madeleine Dignam could hardly contain her excitement.
It was September. With the 2006 Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival six months off, pressure was mounting to better the 2005 lineup - and it was never going to be easy to trump a bill that boasted literary heavyweight Shirley Hazzard alongside Man Booker Prize winners Thomas Keneally and Alan Hollinghurst.
But the festival general manager had pulled the rabbit out of the hat.
Irish poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney will headline this year's festival.
'He's the biggest author we've ever brought. It's a real coup. We've been asking him to come for the past three or four years. He accepts few invitations so we feel incredibly privileged. Few people of his calibre come to the region,' Ms Dignam said.
The celebration of writing coincides with the release of Heaney's new collection of poetry, District and Circle, and a limited number of signed copies will be on sale in the festival bookshop during his events.