November 6

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
Jasper Becker

Made in China: Wuhan, Covid and the Quest for Biotech Supremacy
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 10:00am Sat 6 Saturday, 6 November 2021 See this event
Henry Mance

How to Love Animals in a Human-shaped World
Weston Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sat 6 Saturday, 6 November 2021 See this event
Shola Mos-Shogbamimu

This is Why I Resist: Don’t Define my Black Identity CANCELLED
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 12:00pm 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
Charles Foster Interviewed by Nick Hunt

Being a Human: Adventures in 40,000 Years of Consciousness
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Sat 6 Saturday, 6 November 2021 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.

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.

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.

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.

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