Hay Festival 2018

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events. Julia Hammersley and Anna Lockett of harp duo Harper Gardeners play professionally in classical orchestras. They’re passionate about how nature and music can promote well-being, and they also work in therapeutic settings, using music to support people. As Harper Gardeners, they have transcribed traditional tunes from Scotland, Ireland and England into their own arrangements. They’re also delighted to share their own compositions.

After eight years of political reporting in the US, journalist and podcaster Jon Sopel moved back to the UK, only to find he’d returned to a very different country than the one he’d left almost a decade before.

In Strangeland, Sopel takes a personal look at what it means to be British in a post-Brexit world. In this event he discusses how disconcerted he felt with the country he’d come home to, whether the UK has dramatically changed or whether it’s just him, and how he drew a new portrait of his homeland in chaos.

Sopel is a host of hit podcast The News Agents. He previously worked as the BBC’s North America Editor.

Two history-for-broadcast writers discuss their knack for uncovering the human truths behind familiar narratives, and for turning neglected lives into compelling, authentic stories, with history consultant David Olusoga. They consider the significance of history, and how the past should – and should not – be presented.

In The Secret History of the Blitz, Joshua Levine reveals a time of extremes of experience and behaviour. People were pulling together, but looters also prowled the night to prey on bomb victims. Levine was historical consultant for Steve McQueen’s new film Blitz.

Hallie Rubenhold (author of Story of a Murder) also homes in on the pitch-black streets of wartime London, which offer cover to a murderer as terrible as Jack the Ripper. In her new series of podcast Bad Women, she tells why the Blackout Ripper’s murders were swept from view.

David Olusoga presented the BBC’s Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners and is author of Black and British. He is a historical consultant and executive producer on Hulu’s A Thousand Blows.

Kit de Waal is author of My Name is Leon, which was adapted for BBC Two, and The Trick to Time, which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. In this event she discusses her writing career and her luminous new novel.

Two crusading journalists from Britain and Mexico discuss their work reporting on worldwide conflicts with New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson, who has reported extensively from Latin America.

Iraqi-born Hind Hassan has broadcast for Al Jazeera from the West Bank, Lebanon and Washington DC, and is an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, covering conflicts and humanitarian crises. Mexican reporter Marcela Turati focuses on human rights, the impact of drug violence and its victims. She is a reporter for Proceso magazine and co-founder of the network Periodistas de a Pie (Journalists on Foot), dedicated to training journalists and defending freedom of expression.

This event is part of the Hay Festival and British Council’s Equity Series that pairs authors from the UK and around the world, and began with a conversation at Hay Festival Querétaro 2024.

Award-winning scientist and philosopher Cordelia Fine provides a sharp and clear-eyed analysis of how the gendered division of labour is built and why it persists.

The effects of gendered division is both cause and consequence of men’s greater status and power, and affects not just our workplaces, but contributes to poverty, undermining health, putting pressure on family life and preserving females’ second-class status, causing real harm and injustice for both sexes.

Fine, whose work analyses biological explanations of behavioural sex differences and workplace gender inequalities, explores the effects of gender-related attitudes and biases on judgements, decision-making and workplace gender equality.

Enjoy a twenty-minute open air performance between events. Julia Hammersley and Anna Lockett of harp duo Harper Gardeners play professionally in classical orchestras. They’re passionate about how nature and music can promote well-being, and they also work in therapeutic settings, using music to support people. As Harper Gardeners, they have transcribed traditional tunes from Scotland, Ireland and England into their own arrangements. They’re also delighted to share their own compositions.

Join Robert Harris, pre-eminent writer of page-turning thrillers – most recently Precipice – as he casts a retrospective eye over his work on page and screen and shares insights into his current projects.

Nine of Harris’s bestsellers have been adapted for cinema and television, from Fatherland to Enigma and Archangel. For The Ghost Writer and An Officer and a Spy, Harris co-wrote the screenplays with director Roman Polanski. Most recently, his 2016 novel Conclave was adapted for cinema – the film came out to acclaim in 2024, starring Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci.

Exploring the relationship between author, book and screen, Harris reveals the high points and the pitfalls of adapting books for film.

Furniture restorer Will Kirk and woodworker Callum Robinson celebrate the joys of working with wood and finding hope in longevity in a culture where everything seems easily disposable.

Kirk, who has appeared on The Repair Shop since 2017, is author of Restore, a guide to the principles of woodworking, restoration and maintaining items around your home. Robinson grew up as the son of a Master Woodworker, but lost touch with his roots when he set up his own business and began to chase more commercial projects. In Ingrained, he recounts how he returned to the workshop and to wood, handcrafting furniture and reconnecting with his craft.

They discuss how woodworking brings us closer to nature, the benefits of slowing down, and why working with our hands in the modern age can offer us peace.

How might AI change and supercharge medical advancement? And what does it mean for our healthcare? Kamran Abbasi, editor of the British Medical Journal, talks to lawyer Susie Alegre and doctor Rachel Clarke about how AI could solve the problem of disease and making vaccines, the role ChatGPT and robots could play in medical care, and how to successfully navigate the path between big business and personal health.

Abbasi is a doctor, journalist, editor and broadcaster. Alegre is a leading international human rights lawyer who has worked for NGOs including Amnesty International, and is author of Human Rights, Robot Wrongs. Clarke is a palliative care doctor and author of Dear Life, shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and chosen as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.

Sarah Harman’s debut novel won the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize in 2023. Harman is a recovering journalist with over a decade of experience reporting on major breaking news around the world. She discusses her course change into fiction with Kiran Millwood-Hargrave, award-winning author of The Girl of Ink & Stars and Leila and the Blue Fox.

All the Other Mothers Hate Me is a witty novel about fitting in and starting over. Florence knows all about failure. After a dismal end to her 2000s girlband career, she’s moping around West London, single, broke and unfulfilled. The only things she’s proud of are her increasingly elaborate nail art choices – and her ten-year-old son, Dylan. But when Alfie, Dylan’s bitter class rival and the child heir to a frozen foods empire, mysteriously vanishes on a school trip, Dylan becomes a prime suspect, and Florence has to get her act together…

From celebrated filmmaker Mati Diop (Atlantics), Dahomey is a poetic and immersive work of art that delves into real perspectives on far-reaching issues surrounding appropriation, self-determination and restitution. Set in November 2021, the documentary charts 26 royal treasures from the Kingdom of Dahomey that are due to leave Paris and return to their country of origin: the present-day Republic of Benin.

Using multiple perspectives Diop questions how these artifacts should be received in a country that has reinvented itself in their absence. Winner of the coveted Golden Bear prize at the 2024 Berlinale, Dahomey is an affecting though altogether singular conversation piece that is as spellbinding as it is essential.

“Invigorating and enlivening… An interrogative reverie about colonialism, culture, the past and the present” – The Guardian

In 1995, the London Review of Books posed a question, which caused a brouhaha that made international news: was Jane Austen gay? Terry Castle, the literary critic whose essay about Austen’s letters to her sister Cassandra led to the uproar, didn’t actually ask the question directly, but examined the subject of “the primitive adhesiveness – and underlying eros – of the sister-sister bond”. So hang on, the readers responded: incest too?

To mark Austen’s 250th birthday, the LRB returns to this infamous episode in its history to tell the story of what happened when an American professor examined our most beloved novelist’s unconscious impulses and found… something.

Readings by actors from Austen’s letters and novels, and the diaries of Anne Lister, her unambiguously lesbian contemporary, reveal how Castle’s analysis still speaks to the culture war debates of the present moment. A live musical counterpoint accompanies the readings, arranged by Isobel Waller-Bridge, the celebrated composer whose works include the score for the 2020 film Emma starring Anya Taylor-Joy.

Save the date… for a killer wedding! Award-nominated BookTokkers Busayo Matuluko and Kemi Ayorinde bring the vibe, discussing Busayo’s slick and addictive mystery thriller ’Til Death celebrating the nuances and dramas of Nigerian family and culture. Busayo will break down all the elements of a gripping mystery as they guide you through building the perfect ‘whodunnit’. Bring your best plot twists and red herrings, and join in the conversation.

In ’Til Death, true-crime-obsessed Lara is heading to Lagos for her cousin Dérin’s wedding. It’s going to be a holiday filled with glitzy dress-fittings and glamorous parties. But everything isn’t perfect in Dérin’s world. Lara puts her sleuthing knowledge to work – and soon she’s uncovering a web of secrets and malicious crimes…

Please bring your own notebook and pen to this event.

One of the UK’s most celebrated actors, Juliet Stevenson, talks about her work on stage and screen, and her political activism. Stevenson began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has starred on screen in films including Truly, Madly, Deeply and Bend it Like Beckham.

Increasingly, she’s dedicated her time to activism, and is personally involved in supporting refugee communities and individuals as well as publicly engaged in campaigning for the humanitarian and legal rights of refugees and displaced people. She talks to author Mary Loudon about her work, the complexities of language, her love of painting and why she is so politically active.

Marking the 80th anniversary of the atom bomb, academic Frank Close takes us into the story of the pursuit of nuclear power, and looks at how an innocent and collaborative process was overwhelmed by the politics of the 1930s.

In his book Destroyer of Worlds, Close spans decades and continents to tell the full history of nuclear power and the extraordinary minds behind it, reassessing the roles of three remarkable women as well as looking at how the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki opened the way to a still more terrible possibility: a thermonuclear bomb, the so-called ‘backyard weapon’, that could destroy all life on earth – from anywhere.

Close is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics at Oxford University and Fellow Emeritus in Physics at Exeter College, Oxford.

The Climate Fiction Prize, in its inaugural year, celebrates the best fiction engaging with the climate crisis, offering readers new responses and ways of exploring the biggest story of our time.

In this event the winner of the first ever Climate Fiction Prize, to be announced in mid-May, will speak to novelist, poet and playwright Owen Sheers. They’ll examine what we mean by ‘climate fiction’ as an expanding literary space, the power of fiction in tackling the crisis, and the vital role the wider arts play in its solution. They’ll explore the ways in which fiction enables society to comprehend the impacts of climate change and manifest responses to combat apathy and doomism.

The Prize is supported by Climate Spring, an organisation using the power of storytelling to change the narrative on the climate crisis.

Feeling a little weird at times isn’t weird at all, in fact it’s entirely normal according to comedian, actor and writer Robin Ince. In Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal, Ince – who was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 52 – uses his own experiences to explore the neurodivergent experience and to ask what the point of ‘being normal’ really is, reminding us that it’s ok to be a little different.

In this event he shares the story of how he was diagnosed and what life was like before that point, and offers up personal anecdotes to explore the world of human behaviour.

Dr Rachel Clarke, palliative care doctor and author of four acclaimed non-fiction books, including Dear Life and The Story of a Heart, leads this workshop focusing on non-fiction writing.

Clarke will guide you through the process of honing your topic, planning research, structure, format and narrative, and help you ensure your writing is clear and credible.

Arvon is the UK’s leading creative writing charity. Founded in 1968, it is known for its diverse creative writing courses and events led by leading authors. An online programme, ‘Arvon at Home’ offers virtual writing weeks, writing days, masterclasses and readings. Residential five-day courses are set in historic writing houses in inspiring countryside locations. Courses cover a range of genres including fiction, poetry, theatre, YA, creative non-fiction and more.

Defending freedom of expression, a central principle of any democratic society, is a main goal of the global PEN network, which was joined by Wales PEN Cymru in 2014. But what does freedom of speech mean in today’s divided world? Three writers and free speech advocates discuss the concept with poet and academic Mererid Hopwood.

Fara Dabhoiwala is Senior Research Scholar and Professor of History at Princeton and author of What is Free Speech? Menna Elfyn is a poet, author and President of Wales PEN Cymru. Burhan Sönmez, novelist and President of PEN International, grew up in a Kurdish village in Turkey at a time when his language was stigmatised and banned in education.

Zainab Umar, vice chair of Book Aid International, is joined by authors Sita Brahmachari and Kit de Waal to discuss what is lost when people don’t have access to books.

In our rapidly changing world, the power of the book to teach us to use our imaginations, empathise with other people, seek knowledge and think critically, has never been so important. Yet for many children and adults around the world, access to books and libraries remains limited or non-existent – and in too many cases these vital spaces are under threat.

Brahmachari won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize with her debut Artichoke Hearts. She is Writer in Residence at Islington Centre for Refugees and Migrants and an Amnesty International ambassador. De Waal worked for fifteen years in criminal and family law, and has written training manuals on adoption and foster care for members of the judiciary. Her first novel My Name is Leon was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award.

Join our celebrated pizzaioli for an entertaining, hands-on workshop that will teach you everything that you knead to know about how to make pizzas. Since nothing complements pizza quite like a perfect glass of wine, let us pair and enjoy Italian wine together with your pizza creations.

This 90-minute session includes snacks, a 12” pizza of your own creation and complementary wine throughout. Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

​A star-studded line-up of poets and performers read from Allie Esiri’s uplifting poem-a-day collection in this gala event. Award-winning curator and poetry host Esiri introduces each segment.

Simon Armitage is Poet Laureate, author of Blossomise and Dwell. Gillian Clarke was National Poet of Wales, 2008–16, and is author of The Silence. Actor Damian Lewis is well known for his performances in Homeland and Billions. Theresa Lola is a British Nigerian poet and writer. As the Young People’s Laureate for London, 2019–20, her poem ‘Equilibrium’ was added to OCR’s GCSE English Literature syllabus. Nina Sosanya is a British Nigerian actor with many credits to her name, including His Dark Materials and Baby Reindeer. Actor and activist Juliet Stevenson is well known for her film roles including Truly, Madly, Deeply and Bend it Like Beckham. Joelle Taylor is a queer, working class author whose collection C+nto & Othered Poems was winner of the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry and the Polari Prize. She founded the national youth poetry slam championships, SLAMbassadors.

Two of Britain’s best-known broadcasters discuss their new crime novels and how their own careers have influenced their books, murders excepted.

Writer and Anglican priest Coles’s new book is A Death on Location, in which he returns to the village of Champton as a glamorous movie set takes over the area. As actors don their bonnets, gowns and crowns, a murder interrupts filming.

In journalist Vine’s Murder on Line One, late night radio talk show host Edward Temmis is let go from his job. Cast adrift, he finds himself helping Stevie, whose grandmother, a devoted listener, died in a suspicious fire. Working together, the pair discover Stevie’s grandmother wasn’t the only one of Edward’s listeners targeted.

Comedian Suzi Ruffell takes a funny and moving look at some of the big questions of modern life, from whether peaking in school messes you up forever to the best way – scientifically – to mend a broken heart.

Ruffell shares stories from her memoir Am I Having Fun Now? and discusses masking anxiety with musical theatre, her obsession with the Titanic, and coming out, falling in love and becoming a parent.

The award-winning stand-up comedian, writer, radio presenter and podcast host appears regularly on TV favourites such as Live at the Apollo and Mock the Week, and sells out headline shows at leading venues around the country.

Authors Agustina Bazterrica and Hari Kunzru reunite for a conversation they started at Hay Festival Arequipa, Peru in 2024 as part of the Hay Festival and British Council’s Equity Series that pairs authors from the UK and around the world.

Argentinian novelist Bazterrica’s The Unworthy is a disturbing dystopian novel about the House of the Sacred Sisterhood – the only refuge available after the world has collapsed – and the resentments of the women who live there. Kunzru’s Red Pill is about Jay, a rising star of the London art scene who was once tipped for greatness, but now lives out of his car and earns money delivering groceries, while a terrible pandemic rages.

Shon Faye grew up quietly obsessed with the feeling that love – romantic and otherwise – was not for her. Her experience of the world as a trans woman, who grew up visibly queer, exacerbated her fears, and saw her pursue addictions and short-lived romances as a counterfeit to the real love she craved.

Faye opens up about how she confronted her damaging ideas about love and lovelessness and came to realise that it was part of a much larger problem in our culture, where collective ideals of love have developed in a highly politicised and capitalist society.

In her book Love in Exile, Faye shows love is much greater than the narrow ideals we have been taught to crave so desperately. Faye is also author of the acclaimed The Transgender Issue. She writes an advice column, Dear Shon, for Vogue.com.

What happens when an object of suspicion becomes a case of obsession? Winner of Best Director at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden) returns with a seductive romantic thriller that takes his renowned stylistic flair to dizzying new heights.

From a mountain peak in South Korea, a man plummets to his death. Did he jump, or was he pushed? When detective Hae-joon (Park Hae-il, The Host) arrives on the scene, he begins to suspect the dead man’s wife Seo-rae (Tang Wei, Lust, Caution) may know more than she initially lets on. But as he digs deeper into the investigation, Hae-joon finds himself trapped in a web of deception and desire, proving that the darkest mysteries lurk inside the human heart.

With nods toward classic Hollywood and Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Decision to Leave is a masterwork infused with elegance, ingenuity and a knife-edge precision.

“Sumptuous… an intoxicating spell” – Total Film

Artist and documentary maker Sir Grayson Perry talks to his vocal coach and voice expert Juliet Russell about what it means to find your voice, and about the human urge to make music. Five years ago, Perry embarked on a mission to find his singing voice, and revealed it in a performance as Kingfisher on the TV show The Masked Singer.

He and Russell talk about the power of emotional connection in performance, as well as what drives his creativity and curiosity. Perry, who won the Turner Prize in 2003, works in a variety of mediums but is best known as a ceramicist. He uses imagery and text to chronicle social concerns, his own formative experiences and to tell the story of his alter ego, Claire. Russell is a vocal coach, choir director and composer whose work spans the music, arts and entertainment industries.

Love on screen can often seem unrealistic, from its scenes of attraction at first sight and dancing spontaneously in the kitchen to falling asleep side by side – and looking great doing so.

But how do we create these intimate moments of connection in real life, and what lessons do we take, and abandon, from how we see sex and intimacy portrayed on screen?

Intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien, who has worked on shows including Sex Education and I May Destroy You, and has created intimacy guidelines adopted by HBO, Netflix and the BBC, explains how she helps actors create authentic sex scenes. She discusses how we can use those techniques to rebuild a healthier connection with our bodies, create a safe space for exploration and rethink how we navigate sex and intimacy.

Historian and writer Philipp Blom talks to translator Daniel Hahn about the idea that human beings can subdue nature and rule over it. Born in Mesopotamia at the dawn of civilisation, the idea of subjugating the Earth was included in the Bible, reached Europe through Christianity, and spread to the entire world through colonialism.

It is only with the climate crisis that it has become apparent that the subjugation of nature must be a self-defeating ambition. Blom discusses his new book on the topic, Subjugate the Earth, with Hahn.

One of Wales’ best-known musicians, Jamie Morrison, talks about turning his hand to fiction with his semi-autobiographical novel Wonderboy and The Life & Times of Drewford Alabama.

The book follows Andrew ‘Pop’ Morrison, who hits the big time with his band. But when his partying lifestyle takes a dramatic downward turn, the only thing he finds comfort in is the personal diary of Drewford Alabama. With only a name and mysterious messages on an empty page, will he ever find him?

Morrison is a musician, songwriter and producer, best known as the drummer in Welsh band Stereophonics. In his teens, he formed the band Noisettes and had worldwide success. Since 2017 he has been part of a new project called 86TVs, featuring The Maccabees siblings Hugo, Felix and Will White.