Inside the Bradford Literature Festival 2018
Over 500 speakers in more than 400 sessions feature in the fourth edition of Bradford Literature Festival, in association with Provident Financial Group, taking place from 29 June until 8 July 2018.
This international festival based in Bradford, has grown from an audience of 968 in 2014 to over 50,000 attendees in 2017, and is quickly establishing itself as one of the highlights of the UK’s cultural calendar. The event offers a unique opportunity to celebrate the written and spoken word in all forms and showcases the intimate relationship between words and other creative disciplines, such as art, music and film.
Participants in this year’s programme include: musician and writer Kate Bush, Kashmiri Nobel Peace Prize nominee Parveena Ahanger, novelist Jeanette Winterson, poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, actor Robin Ince, Turkish-British writer and activist Elif Shafak, poet and novelist Ben Okri, American rock starSuzi Quatro, UK rapper Akala, former boxer Frank Bruno, Scottish writer Jackie Kay, Somali social activist Nimco Ali, Labour MP Dennis Skinner, historian David Starkey, author and actor Terry Deary and Jamaican poet Kei Miller.
Newly published books launching at Bradford Literature Festival 2018 include: The Business Plan for Peace by Dr Scilla Elworthy; Don’t Let My Past be Your Future by Harry Leslie Smith; My Mother is Not Your Mother by Margaret Hockney; and City of Sinners by Bradford’s own A. A. Dhand.
In a new landmark literary partnership, Bradford Literature Festival joins forces this year with Hay Festival; their pupilexchange programme saw ten Year 9 pupils from Bradford attend Hay Festival for two nights this May, while ten Year 9 pupils from Powys and Herefordshire attend Bradford Literature Festival in June. Other partners for Bradford Literature Festival this year include National Youth Theatre, Outspoken, Speaking Volumes and the Bronte Parsonage Museum.
A new commission this year by Bradford Literature Festival is a permanent multi-site public art installation celebrating the Brontë sisters. The project features four new, original works of writing engraved onto stones set into different locations in the rugged landscape of Yorkshire that the Brontës themselves immortalised with novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The captivating journey along the four points, of approximately 8 miles, form what is believed to have been the route the sisters themselves often took between their home in Thornton and the family parsonage in Haworth.
