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“YOU NEED TO TURN ME ON FIRST…” - MARCH 19 - 9.07am

Batteries included

Gotta say I’m only going for the title - ‘Robot Sex’, 12.00 noon at Jesus College. I mean, who wouldn’t? Law lecturer Dr John Danaher says it won’t be long before humans can have sex with robots and discusses the implications. According to the official Lit Fest brochure, he will, among other issues, consider whether “they could have a therapeutic benefit and help to improve relationships by fulfilling unmet needs”. Will be very closely studying the audience.

Festival media partner

Supported by the Delegation of the European Union to the UK

Festival cultural partner

Festival ideas partner

The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture

The Cervantes Institute, London

Embassy of Peru

Embassy of Chile

Embassy of the Dominican Republic

Promoting Catalan culture and language worldwide

Festival on-site and online bookseller

Wines of the Douro Valley

Where learning meets opportunity: education partners of the festival

Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection

Oxford International Centre for Publishing

Accountants to the festival

Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024

Partner of Oxford Literary Festival

Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture

New College founded 1379

Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314

Worcester College founded 1714

Lincoln College founded 1427

Trinity College founded 1555

Magdalen College founded 1458

Brasenose College founded in 1512

Reuben College founded in 2019

Harris Manchester College founded 1893

Founded 1884

Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design

Olive oil from Sicily

Alumni Office

Oxford University Images

Local radio partner

Festival information:

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

The Oxford Literary Festival sponsors, donors & partners