Free debate at the heart of 2025 festival

Free debate at the heart of 2025 festival

Renowned for its talks by a host of distinguished voices from around the globe framed by the heritage and dynamism of a world class university, the Oxford Literary Festival has also become known as a champion of free speech and is currently the only festival in the UK to have a freedom of speech statement.

The 2025 programme - running 29 March to 6 April - is no exception, and festival director Sally Dunsmore has created a line-up of over 350 events to nurture intellectual curiosity, a platform where the big ideas of the day are freely debated in an intellectual, congenial atmosphere that values both evidence and excellence.

Supported for a second year by their media sponsor The Telegraph, leading journalists such as Simon Heffer, John Kampfner and Zoe Strimpel will be making appearances to interview speakers or sit on panel discussions.

Speakers include:

Abdulrazak Gurnah
Iain McGilchrist
Robert D Kaplan
Miriam Margolyes
Joanna Lumley
Sailesh Rao
David Starkey
Chris Patten
Simon Armitage
Lionel Shriver
Tony Sewell
Harriet Walter
Wendy Cope
Richard Coles
Val McDermid
Alexander McCall Smith
Cressida Cowell
Alexander Armstrong

Highlights include:

Understanding Our World – Compassion in World Farming is once again partnering with the festival to bring Miriam Margolyes to deliver the Peter Roberts Lecture, ex-Groove Armada turned farmer, Andy Cato and Kate Humble to discuss why we need more compassion in farming.

Perspectives – David Starkey will deliver a lecture on how we live our lives in the 21st century. This is a new strand for the festival.

Faith – Christianity, Judaism and Islam are represented across a variety of talks by speakers such as Diarmaid MacCulloch, who will speak about the history of sex and Christianity, Rachal Shabi on The Truth About Anti-Semitism and Saqib Iqbal Qureshi on Being Muslim Today.

Poetry and fiction – A life-time celebration of Wendy Cope’s work and Simon Armitage talks about his new collection of poems, Blossomise. Lionel Shriver talks about her new book, Mania,and the Reverend Richard Coles about Murder at the Monastery. The festival is also launching a new annual series called Festival Debuts where an established writer champions a debut novelist, in this case Roisin Dunnett will be championed by Francis Spufford and Nussaibah Younis will be championed by Jonathan Coe.

History – Ronald Hutton speaks about his new book, Oliver Cromwell: Commander in Chief, Ben Macintyre will speak about his latest title, The Siege, and Sheilagh Ogilvie on Controlling Contagion: Epidemics and Institutions from the Black Death to Covid.

Biography – Cellist and BBC Radio 3 presenter, Kate Kennedy gives a talk and a cello recital based on her book, A Journey Through Silence, and Nadim Zahawi talks about A Boy From Baghdad.

Environment and nature: Tom Heap explores how to give people and nature the space to thrive and Tony Juniper discusses how a fairer world will save the planet.

Science and medicine – Iain McGilchrist joins the festival to speak on his latest book, The Matter of Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World. Emilie Caspar, Laurence Rees and Leor Zmigrod discuss the science behind mass murder and the radical mind.

Technology – David Gann talks to Jim Mellon about the future of fusion.

The Oxford Debates – include Nigel Biggar and Matt Goodwin debating the issue of Wokism and Free Speech in Universities and beyond and Tony Sewell and Zoe Strimpel exploring opinions on immigration in the wake of the 2024 riots.

Voices of Europe – European writers including Ferran Adrià, Jordi Pigem and Jan Brokken will speak about their books, lives and work.

US srand – crossing the pond to speak about the new books are Shannon Monaghan (To Die with Such Men: Frontline Stories from Ukraine’s International Legion), Marietje Schaake (The Tech Group: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley) and Thomas Levenson (How Humans Discovered Germs, uncovered infectious diseases and deluded themselves we had conquered them).

Vegan dinners – for the second year, both the opening and closing dinners will be vegan with menus overseen by Marlene Watson-Tara

Lectures - Robert D Kaplan will give The American Lecture on his book, Wasteland: A world in Permanent Crisis, Paterson Joseph will interview television chef Andi Oliver, launching the annual Oxford Brooks Chancellor’s Lecture and James Rebanks will give the President of Magdalen Lecture.

British photojournalist Sir Don McCullin CBE is to be awarded the Bodleian Libraries’ highest accolade, the Bodley Medal, for their outstanding contribution to the fields of literature and photography.

Commenting on this year’s festival, director Sally Dunsmore said:

“The rise of the literary festival across the UK has been a fantastic phenomenon offering the perfect platform for the pursuit of knowledge, the search for truth and to understand our lives in a complex and confusing world. You’ll find all of this and more at the Oxford Literary Festival – its exceptional discussions and presentations offer a rich programme of authentic voices on many different subjects, reflecting the festival’s commitment to freedom of expression and thought, excellence and the pursuit of truth. Values we are proud to stand by.

“The festival is extremely grateful to The Telegraph – our Media Partner, for their tremendous support for, and promotion of – our 2025 programme. And for their endorsement of free speech, and of diversity of opinions.”