Oct 2, 2019
In 1998, J.K. Rowling appeared at Cheltenham with her book about a certain boy wizard in a modest 160 seat venue. 14 years later, and this time filling 2,300 seats, we welcomed her back to discuss her first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy, moving on from Harry Potter, her favourite characters and much more.
Please...
Sep 27, 2019
The anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller (Rise) has endured racist and sexist abuse as well as physical threats. Yet she continues to live according to her conviction that we must stand tall and lead the way if we truly believe in something. Editor-in-chief at Elle UK Farrah Storr (The Discomfort Zone) has proved that...
Sep 20, 2019
Arundhati Roy shot to fame when her stunning debut novel The God of Small Things won the Man Booker Prize in 1997, and she has become equally famous for her campaigns in India on behalf of the underprivileged and dispossessed. In this 2002 appearance at the Festival, Arundhati Roy discussed her book The Algebra...
Sep 6, 2019
Irish poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney is widely recognised as one of the major poets of the 20th-century and was described by Richard Lowell as 'the most important Irish poet since Yeats'. In this special recording at the 1988 Cheltenham Literature Festival, Seamus Heaney discussed the influence T.S. Eliot had on...
Aug 30, 2019
To celebrate 70 years of bringing the world's greatest writers and brightest minds to Cheltenham, we've scoured our incredible archive in search of some seminal moments. We're bringing audio from past events to life to showcase the heritage and history of the Literature Festival.
Funny, fearless and fiercely...