The Manchester Literature Festival will return in the autumn, with a stellar line-up of writers, poets, workshops, lectures and other events going on at venues throughout the city.
The line-up this year will include appearances from the likes of Neneh Cherry, Elif Shafak, David Peace, Rebecca F. Kuang, Rumaan Alam, Paula Hawkins, Matt Haig, Alan Hollinghurst, Andrew O’Hagan, Jackie Kay, Carol Ann Duffy, George Monbiot, Caroline Lucas, Harriet Walter and Thomas Heatherwick.
It will also feature three ‘bookend’ events taking place after the main festival – the first with American author and journalist Taffy Brodesser-Akner on 29 October, historian Greg Jenner on 3 November and US novelist Richard Powers on 8 November.
Events will happen at Manchester’s Central Library, the Martin Harris Centre, John Rylands Library, Manchester Poetry Library, HOME and Contact, with the main programme starting on 4 October, winding up on 20 October.
Raw Like Sushi icon Neneh Cherry will be in town speaking about her memoir A Thousand Threads with Booker Prize winner Bernardine Evaristo, while David Peace, writer of The Damned United and the Red Riding novels, will be reimagining the grief, heartbreak and resurrection of Manchester United after the 1958 Munich air disaster.
Also featured this year will be Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell writer Susanna Clarke, commentator Ekow Eshun, food writer Meera Sodha and the Rylands Poetry Reading, which will be delivered this year by the former National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke.
For families and youngsters, there will be artist Ed Syder and illustrator Rob Biddulph, and for the Cabaret For Freedom evening, the poetry and music of the legendary Gil Scott-Heron will be paid tribute by vocalist Temi Bolatiwa, the Untold Orchestra, spoken word artist Sukina Noor, and members of Young Identity.
Cathy Bolton & Sarah-Jane Roberts, co-directors of Manchester Literature Festival said: “Reimagining is at the heart of this year’s Manchester Literature Festival. Caroline Lucas asks us to reimagine a greener, more inclusive England.
“George Monbiot encourages us to reimagine the end of neoliberalism. Curator Ekow Eshun revisits and reimagines the lives of five extraordinary Black men in The Strangers and actor Harriet Walter reimagines what Shakespeare’s leading women were really thinking in She Speaks!
“Elsewhere in the programme, Jackie Kay celebrates a life in poetry and protest; Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke pay homage to mother earth and master storytellers Elif Shafak and Richard Powers explore how water connects us. We also welcome a multitude of other brilliant novelists, poets and artists to the city.”
For more information about the events, head to Manchester Literature Festival website.
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