Rearranged Events

Penelope Lively Interviewed by Chris Patten

Chancellor’s Lecture: Life and Work
Sheldonian Theatre 6:00pm Fri 25 Mar Friday, 25 March 2022 See this event
James Crowden

The Frozen River: Seeking Silence in Ladakh
St Cross College 6:00pm Sat 26 Mar Saturday, 26 March 2022 See this event
Patrick Curry

Enchantment: Wonder in Modern Life
St Cross College 4:00pm Tue 29 Mar Tuesday, 29 March 2022 See this event
Raffi Berg

Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad’s Fake Holiday Resort
St Cross College 2:00pm Wed 30 Mar Wednesday, 30 March 2022 See this event
Richard Hamilton

Tangier: From the Romans to The Rolling Stones
Oxford Martin School: Seminar Room 6:00pm Wed 30 Mar Wednesday, 30 March 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.

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 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.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

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.

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