Festival is continuing as normal

Festival is continuing as normal

Oxford Literary Festival is continuing business as normal. Most of our schedule has been unaffected by recent events. We are ready to welcome visitors and make your experience as enjoyable as we can. The festival is a self-funding charity, mainly supported by volunteers. We are following official information, advice and guidance. Please understand that we might need to take further precautions and change the schedule or access to events if necessary. We will work with the authorities to ensure that we play our part in ensuring public health and minimising disruption. As developments can be fast-moving, we kindly ask in advance for your patience and flexibility. Unless there is reason for updating more frequently, this notice will be updated on the website by 1pm each Friday. It is not a substitute for official information on coronavirus and the UK’s response to it. Click here for advice from Public Health England. Tuesday 10 March, updated Friday 13 March

2023

2022

Festival information:

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.

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.

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 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.

The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there.

The Oxford Literary Festival sponsors, donors & partners

Festival media partner

Festival cultural partner

Festival ideas partner

The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture

Festival on-site and online bookseller

Wines of the Douro Valley

Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection

Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection

Oxford International Centre for Publishing

Accountants to the festival

Private bank - London

Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024

Partner of Oxford Literary Festival

New College founded 1379

Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314

Worcester College founded 1714

Lincoln College founded 1427

Trinity College founded 1555

Magdalen College founded 1458

Reuben College founded in 2019

Harris Manchester College founded 1893

Founded 1884

Festival digital strategy & web design

Olive oil from Sicily

Alumni Office

Oxford University Images

Local radio partner