China

Ye Zhaoyan talks to Sarah Franklin

Nanjing 1937: A Love Story CANCELLED
Harris Manchester College: Chapel 2:00pm Thu 3 Thursday, 3 April 2025 See this event
Mai Jia talks to Angus Phillips

China Lecture: China and the Spy Novel
Weston Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Thu 3 Thursday, 3 April 2025 See this event
Ian Williams and Michael Sheridan chaired by Sophia Yan

Facing up to Xi Jinping and the new China
Department for Continuing Education: Lecture Theatre 6:00pm Fri 4 Friday, 4 April 2025 See this event

Festival information:

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.

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.