Hay Festival Digital 2020

Novelist Gill Hornby takes us into the world of the Austen family, and introduces her latest fictionalisation of the lives of the Austens. In The Elopement, Mary Knatchbull’s life is changed when her widowed father marries Fanny Knight.

Fanny’s sisters become Mary’s first friends, and as Mary starts to bloom into a beautiful young woman, she forms a special bond with one Mr Knight in particular. Soon, they are deeply in love and determined to marry. Who would want to stand in their way?

Hornby is author of novels The Hive and All Together Now, as well as The Story of Jane Austen, a biography of Austen for young readers. Her novel Miss Austen has been adapted for screen on BBC One starring Keeley Hawes.

Poets Małgorzata Lebda and Joelle Taylor discuss the many and varied relationships between women, violence against women, and how women support one another.

Lebda’s novel Voracious follows a year in the life of a young woman caring for her dying grandmother. As her grandfather renovates a room for his wife, the women care for one another, for the plants and for the animals. Lebda is a poet with eight collections to her name. Voracious is the winner of Empik’s Best Newcomer in Poland and is shortlisted for the Angelus Prize, the Conrad Prize and the NIKE Award.

Taylor’s The Night Alphabet reveals interconnecting tales of a woman whose body is covered in tattoos. She reveals the story behind each tattoo to the artists linking all the art on her body together. It is a deep investigation into human nature and violence against women. Taylor is a queer, working class author of six plays and four collections of poetry, most recently C+nto & Othered Poems, winner of the 2022 TS Eliot Prize for Poetry and the 2022 Polari Prize.

Six occasions. Six wines. What’s the best bottle to pour in each scenario? Everyone talks about matching wine with food, but what about the situation? Time, place and people all have a huge bearing on the success of a wine. Sommelier Jane Rakison is here to navigate you through the perennial middle-class minefield – how to choose the right wine. In this tasting event she’ll talk you through her selection of six wines, and then you can try them for yourself.

An award-winning writer, broadcaster and author raised in South Wales, Jane is best known as a wine expert on BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen Live. She has penned two books, edited magazines and written columns over the years, and she loves to host events (especially at festivals). She is an international judge for both food and wine.

The Guardian’s global environment editor Jonathan Watts shares his exploration of James Lovelock, environmentalist and inventor, industrialist, NASA engineer and spy. Watts (author of When a Billion Chinese Jump: How China Will Save the World – or Destroy It) has drawn on hours of interviews, personal papers and scientific archives to paint his portrait in The Many Lives of James Lovelock.

Lovelock is best known as the father of Gaia Theory (that life on Earth is a self-sustaining system in which organisms interact with their environment for a habitable ecosystem). Pulling together the many influences which shaped his life and thinking, Watts discusses this fascinating, often contradictory man.

Award-winning filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki (Le Havre, The Other Side of Hope) makes a masterful return with Fallen Leaves, a timeless, hopeful and satisfying love story that won the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

Set in modern day Helsinki, the film tells the story of Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), two lonely souls whose chance meeting at a local karaoke bar is beset by numerous hurdles. From lost phone numbers to mistaken addresses, alcoholism and a charming stray dog, the pair’s path to happiness is as bittersweet as it is ultimately delightful.

Shot through with Kaurismäki’s typically playful, idiosyncratic style and deadpan sense of humour, this tender romantic tragicomedy is both a loving tribute to the filmmaker’s beloved contemporaries and a timely reminder of the potency of movie-going from one of cinema’s living legends.

“Gorgeous… A heartfelt cinephile ode to the possibility of love” – Little White Lies

PG Wodehouse, best known for creating Jeeves and Wooster, once had a record-breaking five musicals playing simultaneously on Broadway. In Play on Words, devised and directed by Hugh Wooldridge, Wodehouse’s step-great grandson Hal Cazalet and pianist Simon Beck transport us back to the Golden Age of stage and screen through stories, anecdotes and songs.

Wodehouse’s lyrics informed the way he crafted his novels and shaped his inimitable characters, as well as helping define the American musical. Celebrate the birth of the musical, with theatrical writing highlights of the last 120 years from Gershwin, Kern, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim and more.

Cazalet is an opera singer who has created leading roles in world premieres for composers across the world. Beck has been music director and pianist for a number of artists, and for the London debut of the Broadway institution Sondheim Unplugged.

Having played most of Shakespeare’s female characters, actor Dame Harriet Walter now lets them speak their mind, going between the lines of the plays to imagine what these women were really thinking. Hear what Gertrude longed to say; why Lady Macbeth felt she should be King; how Juliet’s nurse bemoaned her loss; and what Cleopatra’s handmaidens really thought of her.

“Though Shakespeare's empathy for his female creations is miraculous, his plays mirror the hierarchy and patriarchy of his day with the result that women are seldom centre stage, have far fewer lines, and their function in the plot is always and solely in relation to a man. But not in these pages…”

Palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke tells the unforgettable and inspiring true story of how one family’s grief transformed into a lifesaving gift. Clarke blends the history of medical innovations behind transplant surgery with the stories of nine-year-olds Keira Ball and Max Johnson in this powerful event about life, death and how we honour loved ones.

After a terrible car accident, Keira suffered catastrophic brain injuries. As the rest of her body began to shut down, her heart continued to beat, and in an act of extraordinary generosity, Keira’s parents and siblings immediately agreed that she would have wanted to be an organ donor.

Meanwhile Max Johnson had been in a hospital for nearly a year, valiantly fighting the virus that was causing his young heart to fail. When Max’s parents received the call they had been hoping for, they knew it came at a terrible cost to another family.

Clarke is author of three books including Dear Life, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize.

Author Geoff Dyer reflects on his childhood and what it means to have come of age in England in the 1960s and 1970s, in a country shaped by the aftermath of the Second World War but accelerating towards change. He discusses his memoir Homework, shares stories from his youth and gives insights into his career.

Dyer is author of four novels and numerous non-fiction books, most recently The Last Days of Roger Federer.

In poet Nick Makoha’s collection The New Carthaginians, time and the world are out of joint. Through a triumvirate of characters – the Poet, a Black Icarus and a resurrected Jean-Michel Basquiat – Makoha explores a heroes’ odyssey, a new mythos in which the othering of Black life might be undone, and a transfigured understanding of myth and life.

Makoha, who discusses his work with musician and poet Roger Robinson, is a Ugandan poet and playwright. His debut collection Kingdom of Gravity was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize and was one of the Guardian’s Best Books of the Year.

Musicians Cerys Matthews and Arun Ghosh present an extraordinary exploration of the worlds and words of the late, great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

Welsh singer-songwriter and Thomas fan Matthews – whose Sunday morning show is the biggest single show on Radio 6 – takes us on a tour of Llareggubb, the fictional seaside village of Under Milk Wood, with acclaimed multi-instrumentalist Ghosh accompanying on clarinet and harmonium. In this magical evening, the pair bring to life characters including Captain Cat and Nogood Boyo from Under Milk Wood, celebrating one of Thomas’ best known works through a mix of storytelling and music.

A love of Dylan Thomas has infused Matthews’ career; she composed music for A Child’s Christmas, and among her books are Out of Chaos Come Bliss, a compilation of Thomas’ poetry, and a retelling of Under Milk Wood. Ghosh is a British-Asian clarinettist, bandleader and composer who has twice been awarded Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards.

Mercury Prize-nominated singer Sam Lee has shaken up the music scene. His latest album Songdreaming (a Mojo Album of the Month) breaks boundaries between traditional and contemporary music. It’s rich in musicality and invention, building on the backbone of double bass, percussion and violin with a world of instrumentation including the Arabic Qanoon and Swedish Nyckelharpa.

His lyrical focus on the perilous state of the natural world informs all his work, and his arrangements relate to a modern audience, moving from identifiable acoustic songs to drone soundscapes, electric guitar and gospel choir. He is a co-founder of Music Declares Emergency.

Lee is also a film soundtrack composer and has provided songs for several major feature films, from Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur to The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

Comedian and musician Rob Deering presents Beat This, the live-music, stand-up comedy game show. Deering delivers mash-ups, megamixes and mayhem, as four great guests from across the Festival compete to win this pop quiz with a difference.

A twenty-first century one man band, Deering creates “a highly impressive one-man soundscape powered mainly by energy and excellent guitar skills” (The Scotsman) at the centre of this fun show. It’s a festival favourite from the Edinburgh Fringe, Green Man, Machynlleth Comedy Festival, Latitude and more, making its Hay Festival debut in 2025.

“As sharp and versatile as a Swiss Army knife” – The Independent.

Come and learn some easy somatic exercises to calm and regulate your nervous system, as Hayley guides you through a peaceful class, calming busy minds and tense bodies, and helping to reduce stress and anxiety.

Hayley teaches awareness of body sensations, beliefs held within the body, and helps you find emotions stored in the body. Through mindful gentle movement and interoception (listening to your internal bodily state), she’ll give you the tools to help switch your nervous system from fight, flight or freeze into a safer, connected, harmonious and calmer state. You’ll learn more about the role of the nervous system and the importance of regulation in modern day living to enhance overall health and well-being.

Whether you want to find out how to relax tension in your body, learn how to calm the mind, regulate your emotions or just take some time out to reconnect, Hayley offers a safe, nurturing space for you to explore a deeper understanding of yourself.

Beginners and experienced students are most welcome. Yoga mats are provided.

Please contact Clare Fry at hello@larchwoodstudio.com with any questions relating to these classes. As capacity is limited, we recommend booking in advance to avoid disappointment.

For decades, newsreader and journalist Mishal Husain had only a partial knowledge of her grandparents’ experiences during Partition. It was a fragment of an old sari that finally sent Husain on a journey through time, using letters, diaries, memoirs and audio tapes to trace the lives of four people shaped by the Raj, a world war, independence and partition.

Husain, a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and the news on BBC One, shares her grandparents’ stories, from pre-Partition India through to their new lives and identities, and reflects on the shared heritage of the past.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee!

Among today’s guests are publisher of Granta magazine and Granta Books Sigrid Rausing and Philippe Sands KC, Professor of Law at University College London and author of East West Street.

José Eustasio Rivera’s classic Latin American novel The Vortex is widely recognised as one of the best novels written in Colombia. It follows young poet Arturo Cova and his lover, Alicia, as they elope from Bogotá and embark on an adventure through Colombia’s varied and magical landscapes. When Alicia disappears, Arturo and his unstoppable ego must follow her. In pursuing her, Arturo becomes an inadvertent witness to the appalling conditions suffered by workers forced or tricked into tapping rubber trees.

Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez (The Sound of Things Falling, Retrospective) and Erna von der Walde, a specialist in Colombian and Latin American literature, culture and politics, have written a new foreword for the book. They talk to Daniel Hahn – one of the translators into English of The Vortex – about this inventive, funny and wildly prescient novel about the human and environmental costs of extractive systems.

Hedgelayer Paul Lamb takes us on an enthralling journey, celebrating the benefits of hedgerows in our countryside and a way of living that has all but disappeared in recent decades.

From the end of summer until the birds nest in the spring, Lamb lives in his wagon and travels the south-west corner of England, maintaining the ancient boundaries of the British countryside. He gives an insight into his life on the road, explains why traditional management techniques of our hedgerows are essential, and why he chooses to preserve our heritage for future generations.

Known on Instagram as the westcountry_hedgelayer, Lamb has over 180,000 followers.

In conversation with the writer and editor, Kitty Corrigan.

Ever wonder how award-winning books make their way from the author’s mind into your hands? In this special salon series, the British Book Awards (aka the Nibbies) bring you authors in conversation with members of their publishing teams, shedding a light on all that goes into the creation of your favourite titles. Join The Bookseller’s programme director Miriam Robinson as she explores the publishing process with one of this year’s shortlisted writers and their creative collaborators.

Guides from the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park lead a walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye. You’ll be joined by local experts who will give their insights into this treasured landscape.

Hay-on-Wye is located within 520 square miles of beautiful landscape that makes up the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park. The National Park is driving change to bring about a sustainable future, meeting our needs within planetary boundaries. Their Hay Festival series of walks take you into the town’s local environment while offering the opportunity to learn more about the Park’s work and its landscape.

Join us for a morning of singing, dancing and illustration with Julia Donaldson and friends, including Sara Ogilvie, the illustrator of Gozzle, who will be illustrating live.

Julia Donaldson, much-loved author of The Gruffalo, Stick Man, Room on the Broom and many others, introduces her funny new picture book. Gozzle (created with Sara Ogilvie who illustrated The Detective Dog) sees a freshly hatched gosling latch onto a rather confused bear.

It’s springtime. Bear has woken up hungry and finds a lost egg outside his cave. Breakfast? No! Out hatches Gozzle, a very sweet little gosling who is convinced that Bear must be her daddy – and that she should be able to climb, dig and eat honey just like him.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative in these interactive sessions delivered by artists and discover that your imagination is the only limit.

Book for the session and you can drop in at any point during the 1.5 hour duration. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

Battles, borders, books and breakfast! Come and explore Hay Castle with its director Tom True, who will introduce the history and invite you to get to know some of the characters from the castle’s past. He’ll also talk about running Hay Castle for the past three years.

Coffee and pastry included in the ticket price. Meet in the Great Hall.

Legend has it that Hay Castle was built in a day by a giantess called Matilda who hurled a stone across the Wye at the end of construction. Find out about this story and more with this entry ticket that also allows you to visit the castle as many times as you like for a year. Explore Matilda’s room, the castle’s costumes and cellars, and the Richard Booth Archive, and make your way right to the top for amazing views from the viewing platform.

This ticket allows you to visit the Castle at a time of your choice on the day selected, and also gives you entry into the 20th Century Welsh Artists exhibition on the second floor.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven.

Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

Join us for an exclusive guided tour led by one of our passionate volunteer guides during Hay Festival 2025. Our knowledgeable guides will take you on a captivating journey through the castle, revealing tales of medieval knights, royal intrigue and the castle’s remarkable restoration. As you explore the castle you’ll gain unique insights into the lives of those who once called this place home. The tour also offers breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside, providing the perfect backdrop for your visit.

Guided tours run daily at 11am and 2pm. Tour price includes entry into the Castle for a year including the current exhibition: 20th Century Welsh Artists.

Come to the Family Garden for a pizza masterclass with Kitchen Garden Pizza. In this one-hour session your imagination and creativity will be fed along with your belly! You’ll get your hands messy with freshly grown and foraged ingredients, make and top your own dough and observe the pizzaioli at work at the wood-fired oven.

Dairy-free and gluten-free options available.

For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilisation, creating around it a vast empire of ideas that were spread across the world along a Golden Road stretching from the Red Sea to the Pacific. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the globe.

Historian William Dalrymple (The Golden Road) draws on a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India’s oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia, sharing stories of the Indian ideas that transformed both the ancient world and our modern societies, from the trade that helped fund the Roman Empire to the creation of the numerals we use today (including zero).

Dalrymple’s books include White Mughals, The Last Mughal and Return of a King. He has written and presented three television series and co-hosts, with Anita Anand, the podcast Empire.

Discover how rainforests are at the centre of our universe, and what can be done to save them, and in turn the human race, from destruction. Writers Eliane Brum and Guy Shrubsole engage in a passionate discussion with Ayisha Osori of Open Society Foundations about reforesting and the communities – human and otherwise – who live in and around rainforests.

Brum’s Banzeiro Òkòtó recounts her move to Altamira, a city along the Xingu River that has been devastated by the construction of one of the largest dams in the world. A Brazilian writer, journalist and documentary filmmaker, Brum is one of the protagonists of global movements Amazon Center of the World and Free The Future.

Shrubsole is an environmental campaigner and writer who has worked for Friends of the Earth and the Right to Roam campaign. His The Lost Rainforests of Britain maps the spectacular lost temperate rainforest that may once have covered up to one-fifth of the country.

Explore a passionate love affair tested to its limits with Eimear McBride (A Girl is a Half-formed Thing). She talks to Toby Lichtig, fiction and politics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, about her trailblazing new novel, an intimate, experiential and immersive story of passion, jealousy and family.

London, 1995. Outside the filthy window, the city rushes by. But up in the flat, there is only Eily and Stephen, 19 and 39. The total obsession of new love. Eighteen months later in a rainy Camden night, Eily and Stephen retrace the course of their two-year romance now their world is merging with the commonplace and ties from the past are intruding.

Two writers discuss safety and the unexpected, control and danger, in their new books, with Monocle Radio books editor Georgina Godwin.

When an albatross strays too far from its home, or loses its bearings, it becomes an ‘accidental’, an unmoored wanderer. The protagonists of Guadalupe Nettel’s stories in The Accidentals each find the ordinary courses of their lives disrupted and are pushed into unfamiliar terrain. The Mexican-born author’s novel Still Born was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.

Saba Sams’ debut novel Gunk is about the complex relationship between the frustrated ex-wife of a student nightclub owner in Brighton and the enigmatic young woman hired to work the establishment’s bar. It explores love and desire, chaos and control, and family in all its forms. Sams was a Granta Best of Young British Novelists in 2023 and her debut collection Send Nudes won the Edge Hill Short Story Prize 2022.