American Programme

Chris Bail Interviewed by Mary Hockaday

Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make our Platforms less Polarizing
Sheldonian Theatre 10:00am Sat 2 Saturday, 2 April 2022 See this event
Marlene Hauser and Elizabeth Hazen Chaired by Rose Solari

Women’s Work, Women’s Words
Bodleian: Divinity School 10:00am Sat 2 Saturday, 2 April 2022 See this event
Saida Agostini Interviewed by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

Let the Dead In
Bodleian: Divinity School 2:00pm Sat 2 Saturday, 2 April 2022 See this event
Lionel Shriver by Mary Hockaday

Should We Stay or Should We Go SOLD OUT
Bodleian: Divinity School 4:00pm Sat 2 Saturday, 2 April 2022 See this event
Patrick Gale and David Downie Interviewed by Sophie Ratcliffe

A Sense of Place
Bodleian: Divinity School 6:00pm Sat 2 Saturday, 2 April 2022 See this event
Kathryn Paige Harden

The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality
Weston Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Sun 3 Sunday, 3 April 2022 See this event
Athena Aktipis

The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps us Understand and Treat Cancer
Blackwell’s bookshop 2:00pm Sun 3 Sunday, 3 April 2022 See this event
Joanna Cannon and Dave Housley Interviewed by Rose Solari

A Tidy Ending and The Other Ones
Bodleian: Divinity School 4:00pm Sun 3 Sunday, 3 April 2022 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.

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.

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 Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

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.

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.

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.