The historian selects letters that have changed the course of global events or expressed a timeless idea – whether passion, rage or humour – from ancient times to the 21st century. Some are noble and inspiring, some despicable and unsettling, some are exquisite works of literature, others brutal, coarse and frankly outrageous; many are erotic, others heartbreaking. His correspondents range from Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great to Mandela, Stalin and Picasso, from Fanny Burney and Emmeline Pankhurst to Ada Lovelace and Rosa Parks, Frida Kahlo, Leonard Cohen, Lincoln, Trump and Suleiman the Magnificent.
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Book tickets for Hay Festival 2022
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The writer and actor’s life is full of riotous adventures: Jennifer talks accidentally enrolling on a teacher training course with a young Dawn French, dressing up as punks and scaring people on the underground, bluffing her way to each BBC series, and shooting Ab Fab with Joanna Lumley.
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Dawn French talks to Miranda Sawyer
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The Pakistani activist and writer Malala Yousafzai won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in favour of the right of children, particularly girls, to education. Aged 17 when she received the award, she became the youngest ever person to receive a Nobel in any category. A BBC blogger since 2009, she has been a persistent critic of the Taliban in her country, which resulted in an attempt on her life when she was on a bus near her home in Pakistan in 2012. She studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Lady Margaret Hall College, Oxford, and has an honorary doctorate from Kings College University, Halifax, Canada.
We open this episode with an excerpt from an event at Winter Weekend 2018 from Malala’s father, Ziauddin Yousafzai. For more than 20 years, Ziauddin Yousafzai has been fighting for equality – first for Malala, his daughter – and then for all girls throughout the world living in patriarchal societies. Taught as a young boy in Pakistan to believe that he was inherently better than his sisters, Ziauddin rebelled against inequality at a young age. And when he had a daughter himself he vowed that Malala would have an education, something usually only given to boys, and he founded a school that Malala could attend.
Malala Yousafzai in conversation with Lydia Cacho
Ziauddin Yousafzai talks to Rosie Boycott
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Peter, a brilliant scientist, is told he will lose everything he loves – his husband, family, friends. He has Motor Neurone Disease, a condition universally considered to be terminal. He is told it will destroy his nerve cells and that within two years, it will take his life, too. But face-to-face with death, he decides there is another way and using science and technology, he navigates a new path that will enable him not just to survive, but to thrive. This is true story about the first person to combine his very humanity with artificial intelligence and robotics to become a full Cyborg. His discovery means that his terminal diagnosis is negotiable, something that will rewrite the future. By embracing love, life and hope rather than fear, tragedy and despair he will become Peter 2.0.
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Peter 2.0: The Making of a Cyborg
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A gripping and triumphant tale of human compassion, All the Young Men is the true story of a young, single mother who finds herself driven to the forefront of the AIDS crisis and who risks everything to give victims back their humanity. In 1986, 26-year-old Ruth Corker Burks visited a friend in hospital when she noticed that the door to one of the patient’s rooms is painted red. The nurses were reluctant to enter, drawing straws to decide who will tend to the sick person inside. Out of impulse, Ruth herself entered the quarantined space and begins to care for the young man who cries for his mother in the last moments of his life. And in doing so, Ruth’s own life changes forever. Ruth goes from being an ordinary young mother in Hot Springs, Arkansas to an accidental activist, the only person willing to help the young men afflicted by the growing AIDS crisis in her deeply conservative community.
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Think of any problem that we face and you may be surprised to learn that there is already a solution out there. We just need to know where to look – and have the courage to think big. Everywhere, people are devising ingenious ways to tackle everything from inequality and the climate crisis to the challenges of housing, technology and demographic change. Based on his podcast Reasons to Be Cheerful, Ed Miliband investigates transformative schemes and why they work. He demonstrates that a different world is possible and we can get there by implementing the best, most ambitious solutions on a large scale. The opportunity for change is immense. It’s time to Go Big. Natalie Haynes is an author and broadcaster.
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Reasons to be Cheerful with Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd
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The walker discusses her mesmerising and inspirational memoir: just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of thirty-two years, is terminally ill, their home is taken away and they lose their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. Carrying only the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.
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Eric Ngalle Charles is a poet, author and playwright who has claimed asylum in Wales. His uplifting story describes how literature and creative writing helped him to overcome his hasty departure from Cameroon when he was 17, how he survived being a victim of human trafficking and living on the streets in Russia before eventually coming to live in Wales. He talks to author Jenny Valentine.
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Eric Ngalle Charles performs Death on the Third Floor at Hay Festival 2019
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Leïla Slimani is the first Moroccan woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, which she won for the shocking thriller and global best-seller, Lullaby. She discusses her work and her novel Adèle with lawyer Philippe Sands.
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Leïla Slimani in conversation with Sophie Hughes, Hay Festival Arequipa 2019
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Carole Cadwalladr won the Orwell Prize and the Reporters Without Borders Award among many others for her investigative journalism in The Observer into the subversion of the democratic process and the impact of big data analytics and interventions on the EU Referendum and the American Presidential Election of 2016. She discusses her work with Oliver Bullough.
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Carole Cadwalladr discusses the political landscape at Gwlad in 2019
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Actor, writer and director Ethan Hawke talks to author David Mitchell at Hay Festival 2021 about his first novel in nearly 20 years: A Bright Ray of Darkness. A young man makes his Broadway debut as his marriage implodes – a blistering story about love, fame and the healing power of art.
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David Mitchell talks to John Mitchinson at Hay Festival Digital 2020
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Award-winning violinist, broadcaster, author and journalist Clemency Burton-Hill discusses the joys of classical music with Peter Florence at Hay Festival 2018. Clemency’s book Year of Wonder is a personal selection of 365 pieces of music for classical music geeks and novices alike.
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Hay Festival 2021 Opening Gala: A Night of Hope
Clemency’s Hay Festival playlist
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For the last episode of this series, stars of literature, stage and screen come together to celebrate the unique power of words in our very special Hay Festival 2021 Gala. Join host Natalie Haynes for this evening of joy and celebration with guests including Stephen Fry, Louise Brealey, Hafsa Zayyan, Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Rob Brydon, Clemency Burton-Hill, Juno Dawson and many more.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Poet and Professor of Languages Mererid Hopwood selects Ifor ap Glyn from Hay Festival 2017, who took Hedd Wyn as his theme for the Gwyn Jones Hay Festival Lecture, Rutger Bregman discussing his book Humankind with Lily Cole at Hay Festival 2020 and Daniel Williams, Leanne Wood and Michael Sheen discussing the work of Raymond Williams at Hay Festival 2021.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Artist, poet, rapper, literary activist and songwriter Rufus Mufusa selects Caleb Femi talking about his astounding debut collection to Max Porter from the Hay Book of the Month, November 2020, Kayo Chingonyi accepting the International Dylan Thomas Prize from Hay Festival 2018, and the award winning poet and linguaphile Mererid Hopwood from Hay Festival 2020.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
The award winning author of Bearmouth Liz Hyder selects Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane talking Lost Spells at the Winter Weekend 2020, the magnificent mathematician Marcus du Sautoy from Hay Festival 2013, and the incomparable Lemn Sissay performing his poetry at Hay Festival 2017.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Journalist and broadcaster Guto Harri selects the magnificent Maya Angelou from Hay Festival 2002, Dr David Jarret discussing a good death and Poet and Chair of Welsh and Celtic studies Mererid Hopwood exploring language at Hay Festival 2020.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Writer, novelist and columnist Tahmima Anam selects her very first Hay event back in 2012 with Helena Kennedy, Joan Bakewell, Martin Rees and Anita Anand, Shahidul Alam speaking at Hay Festival Dhaka in 2014 and the novelist, cultural commentator and founder of Palfest, Ahdaf Soueif talking to George Alagiah at Hay Festival 2017.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Writer, broadcaster and comedian Natalie Haynes has chosen Colm Toibin and Lisa Dwan giving a rehearsed reading of Pale Sister in 2018, Troy Story, the Trojan War from a female perspective, an event she presented with Chris Riddell at Hay Festival 2020, and star gazer Maggie Aderin Pocock’s event from the Winter Weekend in 2018.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Welsh writer and former Hay Festival International Fellow selects the inimitable American Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison from 2014, the much missed and remarkable Jan Morris from 2009 and a conversation he held with Diana de la Vega at Hay Festival Cartagena in 2019.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Former BBC journalist, writer, presenter and director of the European Literature Network Rosie Goldsmith selects the incomparable Clive James from 2007, the Man Booker International Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk from 2010 and the David and Ben Crystal double act from the Winter Weekend in 2014.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
The Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford and author of Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration, selects Adam Rutherford on the Book of Humans from 2019, Matt Hancock talking to Amol Rajan pre-Covid in 2018 and Jeanette Winterson giving the Raymond Williams lecture in 2016.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Founder of the Everyday Sexism project and author Laura Bates selects Jeanette Winterson talking Shakespeare from Hay 2016, Ali Smith’s 2005 interview with Francine Stock and writer and political activist Gloria Steinem from Hay Festival Digital 2020.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Associate Editor for Culture at The Guardian Claire Armitstead selects poet, writer, musician and activist Akala, speaking about his memoir Native, Professor of Psychology Sarah-Jayne Blakemore on the secret life of the teenage brain, both from Hay Festival 2018, and the award-winning Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh from 2019.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Journalist and author Oliver Bullough selects the Serbian revolutionary Srdja Popovic from 2015, Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexeivich and author Tom Bullough from Hay Festival 2016, and the magical and musical Julia Donaldson from 2017.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Magazine Journalist Kitty Corrigan selects nature writer and farmer John Lewis-Stempel from 2015, award-winning British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak from 2013, and one of the major poets of the 20th Century and Nobel Prize winner for literature, the magnificent Seamus Heaney from Hay Festival 2006.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
The author and editor of GQ selects the remarkable Tracy Emin speaking in 2017, Simon Schama on the Story of the Jews, an epic tale of endurance against destruction, from Hay Festival 2014 and Brigadier James Cowan, who commanded the Black Watch in Iraq and the multinational 11 Brigade in Helmand from 2011.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
The writer and broadcaster selects Ted Hughes from 1998, reciting poetry while the wind battered the Hay marquees, the indomitable Jody Williams in 2013, Astronomer Royal Martin Rees in 2016 and the magnificent Maya Angelou from 2002.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
The best-selling historical thriller writer (SJ Parris) choices include Wallander author Henning Mankell from 2011, Toni Morrison talking about her novel Beloved in 2014 and the irrepressible Jilly Cooper from 2018.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
The journalist and author of Greetings from Bury Park selects three distinctive and distinguished actors; Harry Belafonte from 2012, Charlotte Rampling in 2017 and the inimitable Peter Falk speaking in 2007.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
The broadcast journalist chooses The Tiger who came to Tea author Judith Kerr speaking in 2017, Toni Morrison talking to Razia Iqbal in 2014 and her brother and author Peter Godwin speaking at Storymoja in Nairobi in 2013.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
The Professor of Law and author of Baillie Gifford Prize winning East West Street and Sunday Times bestseller The Ratline selects President Jimmy Carter from 2008, the Director of Public Prosecutions, now Leader of the Labour party, Keir Starmer speaking in 2012 and interpreter Amanda Galsworthy in 2013.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Five inspiring women writers Elif Shafak, Leila Slimani, Kapka Kassabova, Janne Teller and Hilary Cottam offer their visions for the future of Europe on the event of our digital Hay Festival Europa28.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Royal Society Research Fellows Rachel Lowe, Gemma Modinos, Adi Kliot, Aquila Mavalankar, Nicole Grobert and Alicia El Haj discuss their work at the forefront of science.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Desmond Tutu, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Gene Robinson, Marie-Elsa Bragg and Gene Robinson talk faith, tradition, conflict and hope.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Tara Westover, author of bestseller Educated, teacher and author Margaret White and Senior Director of the Global Learning Lab and author of Natural Born Learners, Alex Beard explore how we learn.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Journalist-politicians Joan Bakewell and Camilla Cavendish, and Sarah Harper, the Director of the Oxford Institute of Ageing, reflect on a time of super-centenarians, third and fourth ages, and what keeps us vital.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Ed Hawkins, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, Nick Stern and Gabrielle Walker give some perspective on the ways in which the pandemic is changing the term of reference for dealing with the climate crisis.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
A reflection on poetry and the Great War, sampling the Josephine Hart Poetry Hour and our Armistice anthology - The Echoes Last So Long - with actors Eileen Atkins and Dan Stevens and poets Margaret Atwood, Tishani Doshi, Mererid Hopwood, Ulrike Almut Sandig and Owen Sheers.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
A very brief introduction to machine learning, neural networks, darkest fears and wild intelligence as dreamed into being by Ada Lovelace and Alan Turing. Garry Kasparov and Stephen Fry, Beth Singler, James Scott, Ian McEwan, Marcus du Sautoy, Nigel Shadbolt and Margaret Boden share insights into Artificial Intelligence, fiction and (then) fact.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Could you have married your first love? Why does it matter who played Peter? What if Juliet wakes 27 lines earlier? Sarah Crossan, Germaine Greer, Abigail Rokison-Woodall, Erin Sullivan, Tahmima Anam and Stephen Fry share insights into Shakespeare’s play.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
In this first episode of the new series we glean insight and analysis of the historical and contemporary context of pandemics, zoonotic disease, and international collaborations from experts Mary Dobson, Jeremy Farrar, Thomas J Bollyky, Devi Sridhar, Chelsea Clinton and Sally Davies.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
The novelist Hilary Mantel discusses The Mirror and the Light, the third book in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy with Peter Florence. The interview was recorded at Hay Festival Digital on 30 May 2020, where Hilary was awarded the Hay Festival Medal for Prose.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
The legendary and deeply inspiring writer and activist Gloria Steinem discusses her memoir The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off: Thoughts on Life, Love and Rebellion with the founder of The Everyday Sexism Project.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Michael Morpurgo’s compelling Hay Library Lecture is a marvel of storytelling, an impassioned argument for the rights of every child to have access to books and education, and a celebration of his novel I Believe in Unicorns.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
Matthew Francis’ re-telling of the first four stories of the Welsh classic The Mabinogi is the first to situate it in poetry, and captures the magic and strangeness of this medieval Celtic world. Permeating the whole sequence is a delight in the power of the imagination to transform human experience into works of tragedy, comedy and wonder. Chaired by Daniel Hahn. Francis’ new poetry collection WING is out now from Faber.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
A conversation with the social historian Hallie Rubenhold describing how she mined untapped Victorian sources to illuminate the stories of the women murdered by Jack the Ripper in her Baillie Gifford Prize-winning The Five.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
A compelling and hilarious rallying call for our times from journalist and superstar author Caitlin Moran tackling topics as pressing and diverse as a women only language, revolution, flawed heroes and the reasons the internet is like a drunken toddler, in conversation with Stephanie Merritt.
Moran’s books include her multi-award-winning bestseller How to Be a Woman, her two volumes of collected journalism, Moranthology and Moranifesto, and her novel, How to Build a Girl.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
For #WorldBookDay, the day of Shakespeare’s birth, here's actress Judi Dench talking about her Shakespearean work and celebrating her album of great speeches, Exits and Entrances. The event is chaired by the great director Richard Eyre.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at publicity@hayfestival.org or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
How did humans turn themselves from hustling African apes into the rulers of planet earth? The Israeli historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari looks at the secrets of our success and explores the themes of his bestselling debut Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind in conversation with Rosie Boycott in Cartagena de Indias in January 2016.
Lecturer at the Department of History, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Harari’s other books include Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, available at all good bookshops and libraries.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Join us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.
The Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Half of a Yellow Sun, Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists talks about how she discovered Gabriel Garcia Marquez. She responds to his statement “I am a journalist above everything else” in an intriguing exploration of how imagination turns historical fact into fictional truths.
The Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers. Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer.
Stephen Fry and the international human rights lawyer Philippe Sands discuss his award-winning book East West Street, a compelling family detective story and an exploration of the legal principles that defined the Nuremberg War Trials. The conversation is riveting and exacting and you’d expect that, of course. But it’s also hilarious, and the laughter is the light in this deep darkness. #ImagineTheWorld
Our Hay Festival Podcast is supported by Baillie Gifford Investment Managers
Festival Director, Peter Florence introduces the new podcast series where you can hear conversations from some of greatest writers and thinkers of our time. In the coming weeks, you will hear from Yuval Noah Harari, Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie, Caitlin Moran, Judi Dench, Naomi Klein and many more, as we remix and recurate stories and conversations heard at our international festivals from Hay in Wales to Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. #ImagineTheWorld