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Religion

Georgette Bennett

Religicide: Confronting the Roots of Anti-Religious Violence
Exeter College: Marquee 2:00pm Sat 25 Saturday, 25 March 2023 See this event
Peter McCullough Introduced by Triona Adams

To Speake of Tears: A Sermon by John Donne
Lincoln College: Chapel 12:00pm Tue 28 Tuesday, 28 March 2023 See this event
Elias Chacour Interviewed by Diarmaid MacCulloch

A Palestinian Christian Working for Peace and Reconciliation in Israel CANCELLED
Bodleian: Divinity School 2:00pm Fri 31 Friday, 31 March 2023 See this event
Gregory Platten and Alexander Stoddart

Festival Evensong
Pusey House: Chapel 6:00pm Fri 31 Friday, 31 March 2023 See this event
Toby Matthiesen

The Caliph and the Imam: The Making of Sunnism and Shiism
Exeter College: Marquee 12:00pm Sat 1 Saturday, 1 April 2023 See this event

Festival information:

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.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

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.

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.

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.

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.