Biography

Andrew Gant

The Making of Handel’s Messiah
Weston Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sat 30 Saturday, 30 October 2021 See this event
Emma Soames

Mary Churchill’s War: The Wartime Diaries of Churchill’s Youngest Daughter
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sun 31 Sunday, 31 October 2021 See this event
Tristram Hunt

The Radical Potter: Josiah Wedgwood and the Transformation of Britain
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sun 31 Sunday, 31 October 2021 See this event
Kate Kennedy Interviewed by Charlie Lee-Potter

Dweller in Shadows: A Life of Ivor Gurney
Weston Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sat 6 Saturday, 6 November 2021 See this event
Ian Collins

John Craxton: A Life of Gifts
Weston Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sat 6 Saturday, 6 November 2021 See this event
Martyn Bond

Voices of Europe. Hitler’s Cosmopolitan Bastard: Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 2:00pm Sat 6 Saturday, 6 November 2021 See this event
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon Interviewed by Gwenan Edwards

Chemical Warrior CANCELLED
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sat 6 Saturday, 6 November 2021 See this event
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Ladies Who Punch: Fifty Trailblazing Women Whose Stories You Should Know
Weston Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sat 6 Saturday, 6 November 2021 See this event

Festival information:

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.

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 Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

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.

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

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.