Hay Festival: Recent Episodes
Various
The author of Half of a Yellow Sun, Purple Hibiscus and The Thing Around Your Neck examines fiction as a catalyst for social and political change. Chaired by Emily Perkins.
The novelist introduces her memoir of mothers, madness and identity; and, triumphantly a book about other people’s stories, showing how fiction and poetry can form a string of guiding lights, a life-raft that supports us when we are sinking.
Our poet-in-residence reads from his astounding new version of the great medieval epic of warfare and politics.
The great Israeli author of See Under: Love, The Zigzag Kid and The Yellow Wind discusses his masterpiece, a rich imagining of a family in love and crisis that makes for one of the great anti-war novels of our time.
The comedian-songwriter talks about satire, love-songs and his work on the smash-hit RSC production Matilda.
The novelist delivers the inaugural Library Lecture on children’s rights, readers’ rights and the importance of libraries. Entry by library card but places must be booked in advance.
FREE BUT TICKETED
There will be no signing after this event. However, Michael will be doing a 'meet and greet' in Pembertons with signed book plates after his evening event.
The conductor talks to the author of Music as Alchemy: Journeys with Great Conductors and their Orchestras about his work with the Berlin Philharmonic.
As part of the day's programme of conversations celebrating this year's Michael Ramsey Prize the Archbishop of Canterbury discusses the work of the world's greatest writer with one of Britain's finest actors.
The Nobel Laureate discusses her fiction, particularly her Booker-winning novel The Conservationist and her latest story collection Beethoven was One-Sixteenth Black.
‘Sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humour, Desmond Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless,’ – Nelson Mandela.
Raising money for African charities, our two local Cathedrals, and St Mary's Hay
The Nobel Laureate and former US Presidenton conflict resolution and human rights, and the work of the carter foundation. Introduced by Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian. Chaired by Philippe Sands
THIS EVENT WILL BE RELAYED TO SCREENS IN THE FRIENDS CAFÉ AND ASCARIS CAFÉ
The Bishop of New Hampshire, whose homosexuality threatens the schism of the Anglican Church discusses The State of the Communion. Chaired by Stephen Bates, author of God’s Own Country: Power and Religion in the USA.
The heroic and inspiring Kenyan Nobel Peace Laureate and founder of the African development Green Belt Movement talks about her life and work. Chaired by Rosie Boycott.
The true story of the courage and endurance of a boy wrenched by conflict from his Sudanese family home and joining thousands of other orphans on the exodus to Ethiopia. Chaired by David Freeman.
The poet reads and discusses his new collection District and Circle. In conversation with Gwyneth Lewis.
The former Welsh Secretary gives a brilliantly acute and witty account of the life and times of Britain's youngest and longest-serving Prime Minister, brought low by an attritional war and royal ructions.
The Accidental is a compelling adventure in literature from the most inventive and entertaining novelist of my generation. Don't miss this. You can tell your grandchildren you were there when it launched.
The chef and writer conjures shepherds pie, glazed baked ham, Irish stew, roast grouse with all the trimmings, toad in the hole and oxtail stew, pot au feu, cassoulet, bolito misto, pasticcio, jerked pork, feijoida, cozido, curried goat...
Said is the author of eighteen books, including Orientalism, Culture and Imperialism and a memoir Out of Place which traces his growing sense of himself as an outsider: Arab but Christian, Palestinian but the holder of a US passport. His latest work, co-written with Daniel Barenboim, is Parallels and Paradoxes. He is also a music critic, opera scholar, pianist and the most eloquent spokesman for the Palestinian cause in the West. 'Edward Said is among the truly important intellectuals of our century.' (Nadine Gordimer)
This year's lecture is given by the novelist and filmwriter, author of The Buddha of Suburbia, My Beautiful Laundrette, The Black Album, Intimacy, My Son the Fanatic and now The Mother. Kureishi examines multi-culturalism, censorship, and the power of language used against totalitarian silences, depression and fear.
A unique opportunity to meet the American novelist, author of Underworld, Libra, White Noise and Mao II and hear him discuss his new novel Cosmopolis in conversation with the Today programme anchor.
The great historian discusses his memoir Interesting Times: A Twentieth Century Life. 'Autobiography does not come much more sumptuous than this. Eric Hobsbawm writes with elegant, witty precision. His memory - not just for people and dates, but looks and sounds and the feel of things - is prodigious.' (The Observer)
How forgiveness works and where it came from. How it can enrich our humanity, wether or not we have religious beliefs. The former Bishop of Edinburgh and Gresham Professor of Divinity, Holloway draws on philosophers and writers such as George Steiner, Frederick Nietzsche, Jacques Derrida, Hannah Arendt and Nelson Mandela, throwing light on conflicts around the world today. He discusses his thinking with the broadcaster Joan Bakewell
The great Canadian novelist and poet discusses her ingenious and savage biotech fantasy Oryx and Crake with David Aaronvitch
The celebrated teacher and Shakespearean communicates her passion for great poetry with her customary provocative and inspirational brilliance. Greer has edited two collections of poetry by women, Kissing the Rod and 101 Poems. She runs her own press, Stump Cross Books, which has published editions of work by Katherine Philips, Anne Wharton and other neglected poets.
The Phenomenal Woman returns to Hay to launch her final memoir A Song Flung up to Heaven, which covers her return to America in the 1960s and her friendships with Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and James Baldwin.
An intense affair between a famous literary critic and one of the most famous American poets of the 1920's prompts this meditation on love, sex, death and writing from the author of Atonement and the Booker Prize-winning Amsterdam
An interview with one of the world's greatest living writers, author of The Naked and the Dead, Barbary Shore, The Executioner's Song, Harlot's Ghost, Ancient Evenings, The Time of Our Time, Oswald's Tale and The Gospel According to the Son. 'Mailer stands toe-to-toe with the heavyweights of literature, trading tale for tale.' He talks to Dai Smith.
The Booker Prizewinner talks to the BBC Radio 4 Front Row presenter about his novel When We Were Orphans. His other books include The Remains of the Day, An Artist of the Floating World, and The Unconsoled.
The writer in conversation with the journalist Mark Lawson. Wolfe's books include the contemporary classics The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, The Right Stuff and Bonfire of the Vanities.
The journalist and writer whose books include the award-winning portrait of Albert Speer and Into That Darkness - the conversations with the commandant of the Treblinka camp - discusses morality and the humanity with the psychiatrist Anthony Clare. The subject of Sereny's new book Cries Unheard is under embargo untill 11th May.
A glorious anthology of wit and more tall tales from the great raconteur, broadcaster, director and compiler of Theatrical Anecdotes.
Dalrymple follows in the steps of the 6th Century monk John Moschos across the arc of the Byzantine world. His pilgrimage takes him through a bloody civil war in eastern Turkey, the ruins of Beirut and a fundamentalist uprising in southern Egypt. He observes the flickering iconography of crumbling Byzantine monasteries, picks his way along the medieval lanes of the Silk Route and listens to liturgies unchanged for 1000 years as he witnesses the death-throes of the kinship between the Eastern Christians and Islam.
In a devastating indictment of rural avarice and political ineptitude, the journalist and Agricultural Story Editor of The Archers argues the agricultural policy has poisoned the countryside and is destroying the landscape. Harvey proposes a way forward to salvage our once-priceless rural heritage.
The renowned producer of Howard's End , A Room With A View, and The Remains of the Day talks about his movie career and the making of his first English-language film as a director The Proprietor - starring Jeanne Moreau. The film critic and former Director of The Edinburgh Film Festival, Iain Johnstone co-wrote Fierce Creatures with John Cleese.
The American Historical Review has just begun to review not only books, but films - beginning with Michael Collins. Eric Hobsbawm, author of the new On History reflects on the relations of historians, film producers, patriots and the public.
Anyone who's read The Lost Continent, Neither Here Nor There, Mother Tongue and Made in America knows Bryson as an achingly outrageously funny humorist. Notes From a Small Island confirms his status as a master of travel-writing, a wonderfully perceptive and acute companion over here or over there.
The pre-eminent cultural critic, author of The Uses of Literacy, Only Connect, Speaking to Each Other and The Way We Live Now examines the way our society's relationship with reading and literature has developed in the late teentieth century. He explores the politics of culture and education, and analyses the impact or our language on our daily lives.
Far from being played out, Science is just beginning. Some of the outstanding questions that cannot yet be answered are: Where did the Universe come from? How did life begin? And how does the brain work? But the questions that will occupy our grandchildren are those we are not yet smart enough to ask...
The novelest analyses the writing game, examining the mysterious process of creativity with a sharp eye for the subtleties of the different techniques needed for novels, plays, screenplays and adaptations.
The novelist previews his novel Enduring Love. McEwan's books include Black Dogs, First Love Last Rites, The Innocent, A Child in Time, The Comfort of Strangers and The Cement Garden.
The playwright reads from his own work.
P.E.N. is an international organisation of playwrights, poets, essayists and novelists who defend and champion free speech throughout the world.
The novelist previews his novella Night Train. Amis' novels include The Information, London Fields, The Rachel Papers, Other People, Times Arrow and Money, possibly the best book of the 1980's
The intrepid voyager and explorer tells the tale of his adventure into the heart of the African interior in search of a dinosaur in a lost prehistoric lake. "As funny as ever; the surprisingly dark vision, and his scary urge to gaze beyond the precipice of sanity, makes this a unique, messy masterpiece" The Sunday Times
There have recently been observational results to show that cosmological redshifts of a wholly new kind are of widespread occurrence. The new results and the past history of this question will be discussed.
The Nobel Prizewinner gives a rare interview about her novels and her work in the new South Africa. Gordimer's latest novel None to Accompany Meis published by Bloomsbury.
To celebrate the publication of her first collection of new poetry for over a decade, the Canadian writer talks about her writing and the Genesis of her poems in Morning in the Burned House, which draw on classical and popular myth and the more personal concerns of love and the death of her father. "Atwiid brings all the violence of mythology into the present world...she is the quiet Mata Hari, the mysterious, violent... who pits herself against the ordered, too clean world like an arsonist" - Michael Ondaatje."
The Historian Eric Hobsbawm talks to Dai Smith about his histroy of the Twentieth Century. "It takes far greater gifts - and far greater nerve - to simplify and scintillate than to criticise and to complicate. This book displays both these admirable qualities in abundance." - New Society.