Thursday 4 April 2019

Jem Poster and Sarah Burton

Creative Writing Course. Real Lives: Writing Biography and Memoir
St Cross College 9:30am Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Robin Stevens

Murder Most Unladylike
Sheldonian Theatre 10:00am Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Euton Daley

Ending the Silence
Bodleian: Divinity School 10:00am Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Anna Fifield

The Great Successor: The Secret Rise and Rule of Kim Jong Un
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Patrick Curry

Enchantment: Wonder in Modern Life
St Cross College 12:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Leah Plunkett

Sharenthood: Why We Should Think before We Post about our Kids
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 12:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Christopher Tugendhat

A History of Britain Through Books 1900-1964
Bodleian: Divinity School 12:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Alastair Lack

Literary Oxford with Alastair Lack
St John’s College 2:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Maggie Aderin-Pocock

An Interactive Tour of Space
Sheldonian Theatre 2:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Arthur Miller

The Artist in the Machine: The World of AI-Powered Creativity
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 2:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Nora Krug

Heimat: A German Family Album
Bodleian: Divinity School 2:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Hugh St Clair

A Lesson in Art & Life: The Colourful World of Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 4:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Josh Berson

The Meat Question: Animals, Humans and the Deep History of Food
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Casey Gerald

There Will Be No Miracles Here: Life in the Shadow of the American Dream
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
William Feaver

The Lives of Lucian Freud: Youth 1922-1968
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 6:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Ainissa Ramirez

The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another
Cohen Quad: Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event

Festival information:

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.

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.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

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.

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.

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.