A “dream team” of the world’s greatest writers and thinkers are on the programme of this year’s entirely digital edition of the Hay Festival
Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephen Fry, Margaret Atwood, Vanessa Redgrave, Afua Hirsch, Fernando Montaño, Elif Shafak, Inua Ellams and Ali Smith are among the more than 100 award-winning writers, global policy makers, historians, pioneers and innovators taking part in this year’s exciting and unique online edition of the Hay Festival.
The programme comprises over 80 interactive events celebrating the best new fiction and non-fiction and interrogating some of the biggest issues of our time, from Covid-19 and world health to the climate crisis and our future. All the live broadcasts and interactive Q&As are available to watch free of charge (advance registration is required as places are limited).
The British Council has been a global partner of the Hay Festivals since 2010, and on this occasion is supporting a specially selected programme of events with a truly eclectic mix of contemporary writers and thinkers from the UK and around the world.
Full information on the programme and how to register here.
Wordsworth 250
Friday 22nd May from 19.30 to 20.25h CEST
2020 marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of William Wordsworth, one of the finest and most representative British poets of the Romantic period. A star studded cast drawn from literature and the performing arts including Simon Armitage, Benedict Cumberbatch, Helen McCrory, Stephen Fry or Vanessa Redgrave will commemorate this important anniversary with a reading of a selection of their most beloved poems
Sunday 24th May from 17.00 to 17.30h CEST
What is the future of journalism in our newly wrangled world? Afua Hirsch is Wallis Annenberg Chair at The University of Southern California. She is the author of “Brit(ish)” and “Equal to Everything”, and hosts the “About The British Empire” podcast on audible. She writes for the Guardian, and broadcasts internationally. Chaired by Rosie Boycot
SHAKESPEARE IN A DIVIDED AMERICA
Sunday 24th May from 18.30 to 19.20h CEST
Shakespeare's position as England's national poet is established and unquestionable. But as James Shapiro illuminates in this revelatory new history, Shakespeare has long held an essential place in American culture. Why, though, would a proudly independent republic embrace England's greatest writer? Especially when his works enact so many of America's darkest nightmares: interracial marriage, cross-dressing, same-sex love, tyranny, and assassination.
Shapiro, who teaches English at Columbia University in New York, is author of several books, including “1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare” (winner of the BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize in 2006), as well as “Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?”. He also serves on the Board of the Royal Shakespeare Compan
AN EVENING WITH AN IMMIGRANT IN A TIME OF PANDEMIC - OR AT LEAST A HALF HOUR
Sunday 24th May from 19.30 to 20.00h CEST
The multi-award-winning poet and playwright Inua Ellams introduces extracts from his celebrated autobiographical one-man show and discusses the latest twists and turns in his life with the online audience. Littered with poems, stories and anecdotes, the show tells his ridiculous, fantastic, poignant immigrant-story of escaping fundamentalist Islam, experiencing prejudice and friendship in Dublin, performing solo at the National Theatre, and drinking wine with the Queen of England, all the while without a country to belong to or place to call hom
Lan Yan talks to Philippe Sands
HOUSE OF YAN: A FAMILY AT THE HEART OF A CENTURY IN CHINESE HISTORY
Monday 25th May from 12.30 to 13.10h CEST
The history of the Yan family is inseparable from the history of China over the last century. One of the most influential businesswomen of China today, Lan Yan’s parents were diplomats and she grew up in the company of the country's powerful political elite. In spite of their elevated status, the Yan's family life was turned upside down by the Cultural Revolution, and she and her mother were forced to go to a re-education camp for more than seven years. She was later to become one of the most active businesswomen in her country. In this conversation with the international human rights lawyer Philippe Sands she will be telling her and her family's story as well as serving up an intimate account of the history of contemporary China.
THE BEGINNING OF THE AND, A HAY FESTIVAL EXCLUSIVE
A meditation on continuance, by Ali Smith, filmwork by Sarah Wood.
Monday 25th May at 19.30h
The author, playwright, academic and journalist Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962. Her novel “Hotel World” was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. “The Accidental” was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. “How to be both” won the Bailey's Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. “Autumn” was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 and “Winter” was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2018.
Sarah Wood works with the found object, particularly the still and moving image, as an act of reclamation and re-interrogation. She works mainly with the documentary image to interrogate the relationship between the narrating of history and individual memory. Recently she's been focusing on the meaning of the archive, in particular the politics of memory, asking not only why some objects are preserved while others are ignored but also why preservation is made at certain historical moments.