Oxford Literary Festival

Welcome to the 2012 Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, and a special welcome to our new website.  Once again, we have gathered a tremendous number of world-class authors and speakers for the 2012 festival.

Most of the speakers and events are already listed here and available for you to book. We are pleased to present a series of major addresses at the Sheldonian Theatre. Writer Vikram Seth will give the Chancellor’s Lecture, and other Sheldonian speakers include Anne Tyler, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams; playwright Sir David Hare; filmmaker Sir Alan Parker; novelist Peter Carey, children’s writer Michael Morpurgo and Craig Brown.

We are extremely grateful to The Sunday Times for their promotion of the festival, and to our global banking partner HSBC Premier for their support. We also thank our many other sponsors, donors and partners for their support and encouragement.

In 2012, we are running our successful creative writing course for the fifth time, and we will be promoting some stimulating debate around the big issues of the day. We have a series of events around leadership;  and debates on Iraq, fiction and the politics of identity, and on high finance. On the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens, we have a number of events based around our greatest novelist, including one led by Philip Pullman. Our popular ‘Conversations with Poets’ return, and there is lots of fun for our younger visitors too with a full programme of events for children.

We have launched a new website for this year’s festival. We will be adding to the events and posting news items over the next few weeks, so please come back to find out the latest on what is going on. We would like to know what you think of the website or if you have any problems with it. You can contact us at info@oxfordliteraryfestival.org You can also keep up to date with the festival by following us on Twitter at twitter.com/oxfordlitfest or visiting us at our Facebook page www.facebook.com/oxfordliteraryfestival

We look forward to seeing you for the 2012 festival between Saturday March 24 and Sunday April 1.

Sally Dunsmore, Festival Director