Literary Festivals

We’re delighted to introduce the writers taking part in our 2010 Spring Literary Festival. The series features an international line-up of some of the most exciting novelists writing today as well as three of Britain’s leading poets.

	Tuesday 26 January 2010 : DON PATERSON 31 December 2009: Scottish poet Don Paterson has been awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Read more... Book tickets
	Tuesday 16 February 2010 : LAILA LALAMI Her novel, Secret Son, was published to immediate acclaim and is the story of a young man living in the Casablanca slums whose discovery of his father leads him into a dangerous political world. Read more... Book tickets
	Tuesday 23 February 2010 : JOSHUA FERRIS “It’s a long time since I’ve read a novel so painfully funny, or so absurdly true.” - Craig Brown on Then We Came to the End Read more... Book tickets
	Wednesday 17 March 2010 : ROBIN ROBERTSON “Robin Robertson’s poetry has a distinct integrity; drawing one right into its unsettling world, it slowly reveals a somewhat bleak, uncompromising, but compelling view of human relations.” Jules Smith, Contemporary Writers Read more... Book tickets
	Monday 19 April 2010 : JIM CRACE “A writer of hallucinatory skill” John Updike Read more... Book tickets
	Wednesday 28 April 2010 : JOANNE HARRIS “Beyond the book's considerable entertainment value, Harris has written an unsettling reminder of how much our orderly lives depend on a fragile level of trust.” Washington Post on Gentlemen and Players Read more... Book tickets
	Thursday 13 May 2010 : ESTHER FREUD “Nobody else can write this well about the bravery and the sad wisdom of children ... attending to Esther Freud's still, truthful voice becomes not only a pleasure but a necessity.” Jonathan Coe Read more... Book tickets
	Wednesday 19 May : SIMON ARMITAGE “Armitage creates a muscular but elegant language of his own out of slangy, youthful, up-to-the-minute jargon and the vernacular of his native northern England. He combines this with an easily worn erudition, plenty of nous and the benefit of unblinkered experience...” Peter Reading, Sunday Times Read more... Book tickets