Oxford Literary Festival 2018 | Oxford Literary Festival

Monty Don and Derry Moore talk about their new book and BBC series

Two-times Costa Book of the Year winner Sebastian Barry gives this year's Chancellor's Lecture

Frances-hardinge-author-photo-(c)-david-levenson

Image credit: David Levenson ©

Costa award-winner Frances Hardinge talks about her new novel

Image credit: K T Bruce ©

The Sheldonian Theatre hosts the festival's biggest events

Novelists Jacob Ross and Maggie Gee look at stories of protest

Children's writer Philip Ardagh shares silly secrets of a knight in training

Image credit: k T Bruce ©

The festival marquee bookshop outside the Sheldonian Theatre is the festival hub

Ronald Hutton looks at why societies worldwide have feared witchcraft

Thank you for supporting this year’s FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival. The 2019 takes place between March 30 and April 7.

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Special event
25 September 2018 at 7pm
Neil MacGregor
Living with the Gods: 40,000 Years of Peoples, Objects and Beliefs
£7 - £12.50
Book now

Title partner

Global banking partner

Festival cultural partner

Worcester College: Festival college partner

Festival ideas partner

International radio partner

Broadcast media partner

Festival green room sponsor

Sponsor of Gibraltar Lecture

Festival on-site and online bookseller

Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design

Festival courtesy cars

The festival hotel

Lawyers to the festival

Lincoln College

St Cross College

The Queen's College

St John's College

Exeter College

Keble College

K T Bruce Photography

Alumni Office

Regional media partner

Local radio partner

Sheldonian events

Festival information:

Every literary festival stays in an author’s mind for slightly individual reasons. I shall remember the Oxford festival for: - the size of the audience: at the top end of the range - their intelligence – this makes a huge difference for a speaker. In the Oxford audience I encountered many experts in the field my book covered and even one of the ambassadors I’d quoted - the beauty and the grace of the place itself – incomparable - the willingness of my hearers to buy books afterwards; I’ve never sold more.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.

I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.

It was a privilege for me to visit the festival to receive the Bodley Medal. As an incidental blessing I saw Oxford at its most mysterious and atmospheric. It was a day of piercing cold and as I walked through the twilight from the Sheldonian to Christ Church, the streets were empty and the whole city was shutting itself away. Christ Church was silent except for the footfall of unseen persons around corners and the sounds of evensong creeping from behind closed doors. For the first time I understood thoroughly the power of college ghost stories.

The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there.

A stimulating and rewarding on-stage conversation; a lively informed and tolerant audience; privileged access to the great treasures of the Bodleian, and finally, wonderfully interesting dinner companions to help me conclude the best day I have enjoyed at any festival – anywhere.

The Oxford Literary Festival has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will.

FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival 2018 partners & sponsors

Title partner

Global banking partner

Festival cultural partner

Worcester College: Festival college partner

Festival ideas partner

International radio partner

Broadcast media partner

Festival green room sponsor

Sponsor of Gibraltar Lecture

Festival on-site and online bookseller

Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design

Festival courtesy cars

The festival hotel

Lawyers to the festival

Lincoln College

St Cross College

The Queen's College

St John's College

Exeter College

Keble College

K T Bruce Photography

Alumni Office

Regional media partner

Local radio partner

Monty Don and Derry Moore talk about their new book and BBC series

Two-times Costa Book of the Year winner Sebastian Barry gives this year's Chancellor's Lecture

Costa award-winner Frances Hardinge talks about her new novel

The Sheldonian Theatre hosts the festival's biggest events

Novelists Jacob Ross and Maggie Gee look at stories of protest

Children's writer Philip Ardagh shares silly secrets of a knight in training

The festival marquee bookshop outside the Sheldonian Theatre is the festival hub

Ronald Hutton looks at why societies worldwide have feared witchcraft

Thank you for supporting this year’s FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival. The 2019 takes place between March 30 and April 7.

Sign up here for our newsletters.

Sheldonian events

Anthony Horowitz Interviewed by Nicolette Jones

Alex Rider: Never Say Die

Antony Sher Interviewed by Jonathan Bate

Worcester College Provost’s Lecture: Year of the Mad King – The Lear Diaries

Lauren Child Interviewed by Nicolette Jones

The Magic of Reading and Writing

Anthony Horowitz Interviewed by Nick Higham

An Audience with Anthony Horowitz and Honorary Fellowship of Oxford Literary Festival

Claire Tomalin Interviewed by Richard Ovenden

Bodley Lecture and Award of Bodley Medal: A Life of My Own

David Olusoga Interviewed by Janina Ramirez

Civilisations: First Contact and the Cult of Progress

Richard Dawkins Interviewed by Nick Higham

Science in the Soul

Judith Kerr Interviewed by Nicolette Jones

Katinka’s Tail

Cressida Cowell

The Wizards of Once

Louise Richardson and David Willetts

The Future of our Universities

Monty Don and Derry Moore

Paradise Gardens: A Journey Through India and Turkey to Morocco and Spain

Robert Peston Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

WTF: What have we done? Why did it happen? How do we take back control?

Diana Moran and Muir Gray

Sod Sitting, Get Moving! Reduce your Risk of Disability, Dementia and Frailty

Alan Johnson Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

The Long Winding Road

Sophie Kinsella Interviewed by Suzi Feay

An Audience with Sophie Kinsella

Ronald Hutton Interviewed by Diarmaid MacCulloch

British Academy Lecture – The Witch: A History of Fear

Ben Goldacre Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

A Life in Science

Sebastian Barry Interviewed by Chris Patten

Chancellor’s Lecture: Days Without End

Will Hutton and Andrew Adonis

Hertford Conversations. Saving Britain: What Europe Does For Us and How to Keep the Best of It

Penelope Lively Interviewed by Peter Kemp

Life in the Garden

Ian McEwan Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

A Writing Life

Anne Enright Interviewed by Louise Richardson

Vice-Chancellor’s Lecture: An Audience with Anne Enright

Ruby Wax and Gelong Thubten Interviewed by Lucy Atkins

How to be Human: The Manual

Tim Bentinck Interviewed by Stephen Dunk

Being David Archer

Rick Stein Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

Rick Stein - A Life in Food

Wendy Cope

Anecdotal Evidence

Mervyn King Interviewed by Lionel Barber

The FT Weekend Lecture. Ten Years On: The Global Economy after the Financial Crisis

Nicholas Parsons, Miles Jupp, Pam Ayres, Tony Hawks and Felix Francis

Just a Minute SOLD OUT

Hermione Norris Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

From Cold Feet to Spooks

Gary Kemp Interviewed by Simon Kövesi

An Audience with Gary Kemp

Simon Sebag Montefiore Interviewed by Nick Higham

An Audience with Simon Sebag Montefiore

Neil MacGregor

Living with the Gods: 40,000 Years of Peoples, Objects and Beliefs