| Oxford Literary Festival

David Lammy talks about his book Tribes

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Maggie O'Farrell on her Hamlet-inspired novel

Alexander McCall Smith receives festival honorary fellowship

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Donna Leon on her latest Brunetti crime case

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Historian Lucy Worsley has fun with The Austen Girls

Historian Roy Strong on the Elizabethan image

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Sky at Night presenter Maggie Aderin-Pocock takes an interactive tour of the solar system

Olympic gold medallist Mary Peters on sportswomen and success

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Image credit: Justine Stoddard ©

Novelist Pat Barker talks about The Silence of the Girls

Former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on his new book on morality

Welcome to the 24th FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival. We have more than 180 confirmed events available to book now. We will be adding lots more over the next few weeks. Click here to see events added since our last email newsletter.

Festival cultural partner

Festival ideas partner

International radio partner

Title partner

Patron donor for the programme of Irish literature and culture

Festival academic partner

Festival on-site and online bookseller

Festival London hotel partner

MIT Press. Sponsors of the programme of American literature and culture

Supporters of the Irish programme

Supporter of Italian programme

Partner of Jewish programme

St Cross College

11th St Hilda's day at the festival

Lincoln College

Worcester College

Regional media partner

Local radio partner

Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design

Alumni Office

Oxford University Images

K T Bruce Photography

Sheldonian events

Festival information:

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

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 night in Oxford was the most beautiful event I have ever done. Not just the spectacular setting (of the Sheldonian), but an unforgettable evening.

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.

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.

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.

Often as an author, I only occasionally get to meet the public who buy and read my books. The Oxford Literary Festival was a special opportunity for me and certainly one of the highlights of my career – it was an honour I will never forget.

FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival partners & sponsors

Festival cultural partner

Festival ideas partner

International radio partner

Title partner

Patron donor for the programme of Irish literature and culture

Festival academic partner

Festival on-site and online bookseller

Festival London hotel partner

MIT Press. Sponsors of the programme of American literature and culture

Supporters of the Irish programme

Supporter of Italian programme

Partner of Jewish programme

St Cross College

11th St Hilda's day at the festival

Lincoln College

Worcester College

Regional media partner

Local radio partner

Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design

Alumni Office

Oxford University Images

K T Bruce Photography

David Lammy talks about his book Tribes

Maggie O'Farrell on her Hamlet-inspired novel

Alexander McCall Smith receives festival honorary fellowship

Donna Leon on her latest Brunetti crime case

Historian Lucy Worsley has fun with The Austen Girls

Historian Roy Strong on the Elizabethan image

Sky at Night presenter Maggie Aderin-Pocock takes an interactive tour of the solar system

Olympic gold medallist Mary Peters on sportswomen and success

Novelist Pat Barker talks about The Silence of the Girls

Former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks on his new book on morality

Sheldonian events

Penelope Lively Interviewed by Chris Patten

Chancellor’s Lecture: Life and Work

Harry Potter

Celebrating the Harry Potter Books

Alexandra Harris, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and Roy Foster Chaired by Hermione Lee

Princeton Conversation: Lives of Houses

Val McDermid and Emma Smith

Shakespeare and Marlowe: Rivals, Collaborators, or Aliases – an Early Modern Mystery

Prue Leith and Peta Leith Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

The Vegetarian Kitchen

Allie Esiri

Shakespeare for Every Day of the Year

James Barr Interviewed by Peter Frankopan

Lords of the Desert: Britain’s Struggle with America to Dominate Middle East

Jim Al-Khalili

The World According to Physics

Maggie O’Farrell

Hamnet

Jonathan Sacks Interviewed by Nick Higham

Morality: Why We Need it and How to Find It

Karen Armstrong

The Lost Art of Scripture

David Lammy Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

Tribes: How our Need to Belong can Make or Break the Good Society

Pat Barker Interviewed by Richard Ovenden

2020 Bodley Lecture and Award of Bodley Medal: The Silence of the Girls

Michael Wood

The Story of China: A Portrait of a Civilisation and a People

Steve Jones

Here Comes the Sun: How it Makes us What we are

Alexander McCall Smith

A Celebration of A Writing Life and Honorary Fellowship

Donna Leon Interviewed by Peter Kemp

Trace Elements

Robin Stevens

Murder Most Unladylike

Maggie Aderin-Pocock

An Interactive Tour of Space

Julia Neuburger

Antisemitism: What It Is. What It Isn’t. Why It Matters

Tom Holland

Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind

Lucy Worsley

The Austen Girls