Biography

Aida Edemariam

The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 10:00am Sat 28 Saturday, 28 March 2020 See this event
Julie Summers Interviewed by Marion Hume

Dressed for War: The Story of Audrey Withers, Vogue Editor
Cohen Quad: Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sat 28 Saturday, 28 March 2020 See this event
Alexandra Harris, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and Roy Foster Chaired by Hermione Lee

Princeton Conversation: Lives of Houses
Sheldonian Theatre 12:00pm Sat 28 Saturday, 28 March 2020 See this event
Val McDermid and Emma Smith Chaired by Triona Adams

Shakespeare and Marlowe: Rivals, Collaborators, or Aliases – an Early Modern Mystery
Sheldonian Theatre 2:00pm Sat 28 Saturday, 28 March 2020 See this event
Laura Cumming Interviewed by Claire Armitstead

On Chapel Sands
Cohen Quad: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sat 28 Saturday, 28 March 2020 See this event
Lisa Immordino Vreeland and Robin Muir

Love, Cecil: A Journey with Cecil Beaton
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sat 28 Saturday, 28 March 2020 See this event
Daisy Dunn Interviewed by Nicolette Jones

In the Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny
Cohen Quad: Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Sat 28 Saturday, 28 March 2020 See this event
Jung Chang Interviewed by Nick Higham

Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of 20th-Century China CANCELLED
Sheldonian Theatre 12:00pm Sun 29 Sunday, 29 March 2020 See this event
Kate Kirkpatrick and Cate Haste

Simone de Beauvoir and Alma Mahler - Becoming a Woman
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Mon 30 Monday, 30 March 2020 See this event
Marion Turner

Chaucer: A European Life
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Mon 30 Monday, 30 March 2020 See this event
D J Taylor

Lost Girls: Love, War and Literature 1939-51
St Cross College 2:00pm Mon 30 Monday, 30 March 2020 See this event
Nicola Tallis

Uncrowned Queen: The Fateful Life of Margaret Beaufort, Tudor Survivor
St Cross College 4:00pm Mon 30 Monday, 30 March 2020 See this event
Leo McKinstry

Attlee and Churchill: Allies in War, Adversaries in Peace
Exeter College: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Tue 31 Tuesday, 31 March 2020 See this event
Jeremy Dronfield

The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz
Weston Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Tue 31 Tuesday, 31 March 2020 See this event
Jan Marsh

Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 4:00pm Tue 31 Tuesday, 31 March 2020 See this event
Clare Carlisle and Kathy O’Shaughnessy

Uncovering the Real George Eliot
St Cross College 4:00pm Tue 31 Tuesday, 31 March 2020 See this event
George Carey and Michael Collins

John Henry Newman: Perspectives on Sainthood
Exeter College: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Tue 31 Tuesday, 31 March 2020 See this event
John O’Connell Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

Bowie’s Books: The Hundred Literary Heroes Who Changed His Life
St Cross College 6:00pm Tue 31 Tuesday, 31 March 2020 See this event
Christina Hardyment

Novel Houses: Twenty Famous Fictional Dwellings
Weston Lecture Theatre 10:00am Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Clare Hastings

Hold the Front Page! For the star of Fleet Street
St Cross College 12:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
John Guy

Gresham’s Law: The Life and World of Queen Elizabeth I’s Banker
Bodleian: Divinity School 12:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Adam Sisman

The Professor and the Parson: A Story of Desire, Deceit and Defrocking
Weston Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Wed 1 Wednesday, 1 April 2020 See this event
Archie Brown Interviewed by Matthew Stadlen

The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher and the End of the Cold War
St Cross College 10:00am Thu 2 Thursday, 2 April 2020 See this event
Mo Moulton

Mutual Admiration Society: How Dorothy L Sayers and Her Oxford Circle Remade the World For Women
Weston Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Thu 2 Thursday, 2 April 2020 See this event
Paul Corthorn

Enoch Powell: Politics and Ideas in Modern Britain
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 2:00pm Thu 2 Thursday, 2 April 2020 See this event
Andrew Lownie

The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves
Weston Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Thu 2 Thursday, 2 April 2020 See this event
Claudia La Malfa

Raphael and the Antique
St Cross College 10:00am Fri 3 Friday, 3 April 2020 See this event
Catherine Horwood

Beth Chatto: A Life with Plants
St Cross College 12:00pm Fri 3 Friday, 3 April 2020 See this event
Janice Hadlow

The Other Bennet Sister
Bodleian: Divinity School 2:00pm Fri 3 Friday, 3 April 2020 See this event
John Took

Dante
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 2:00pm Fri 3 Friday, 3 April 2020 See this event
Anna Fifield Interviewed by Alec Russell

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

Heimat: A German Family Album CANCELLED
Weston Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sat 4 Saturday, 4 April 2020 See this event
Gill Hornby Interviewed by Peter Kemp

Miss Austen
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 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
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
Clarissa Campbell Orr

Mrs Delany: A Life
St Cross College 2:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Andrew Robinson

Einstein on the Run: How Britain Saved the World’s Greatest Scientist
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 4:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Kavita Puri Interviewed by Alastair Niven

Partition Voices: Untold British Stories
St Cross College 4:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Duncan Hamilton

The Great Romantic: Cricket and the Golden Age of Neville Cardus
Weston Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event
Robert Service and Catherine Belton Chaired by Matthew Stadlen

The Rise of Putin: Dashing Hopes for a New Russia
Worcester College: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event

Festival information:

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.