Around the World for 80 Years
Wednesday 14 August 11:45 - 12:45
Throughout his 80 years, Robin Knox-Johnston has never quenched his thirst for adventure. Not content with being the first man to circumnavigate the globe alone on a non-stop voyage in 1969, he repeated the feat 12 years ago aged 68, becoming the oldest...
Story of our Times
Wednesday 14 August 12:00 - 13:00
Novels reveal insights into the mood of the places they were written. Not surprisingly, Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other and Linda Grant’s A Stranger City feel timely, as Britain finds itself in flux. Evaristo’s book is a love song to...
Last Gasp of Empire
Wednesday 14 August 12:15 - 13:15
After the Second World War, the US and Britain were united in their hatred of the Soviet Union but were also locked in their own rivalry. That’s the premise of James Barr’s Lords of the Desert, which charts the two countries’ 25 year wrestle to...
Swedish Fiction
Wednesday 14 August 12:15 - 13:15
What happens to a story’s essence when it is translated from one language to another? Two acclaimed translators, Nichola Smalley and Saskia Vogel, present their own interpretations of the same text by Swedish novelist Lina Wolff, author of The...
Age 3-6
Wednesday 14 August 12:15 - 13:15
Tom Morgan-Jones's debut picture book comes to Edinburgh in an energetic, interactive event full of live drawing and storytelling. Follow the story and draw along with Tom as a friendly group of animals falls into panic when they hear the notorious...
An Age of Extremes
Wednesday 14 August 12:30 - 13:30
Eric Hobsbawm spent his life investigating the trends and changes shaping our world. Now, one of his colleagues has written a study of the man and his ideas. In A Life in History, fellow historian Richard J Evans reveals Hobsbawm the thinker and person:...
Reading Workshop
Wednesday 14 August 13:00 - 14:30
British Jamaican poet Raymond Antrobus won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry last year for The Perseverance. His compelling poetry deals with family life, the death of his father, his diagnosis with deafness and his biracial heritage. Our...
Stories We Told Ourselves
Wednesday 14 August 13:30 - 14:30
As this year's Festival theme suggests, we need new stories to make sense of a changing world that sometimes seems to make no sense at all. In this keynote contribution to the Festival, Richard Holloway explains why stories have been a critical tool for...
The Journey is the Destination
Wednesday 14 August 13:45 - 14:45
In 2017, we sent ten writers across the Americas for Outriders, a project of complex journeys, exploring controversial themes during which the writers exchanged ideas. Ahead of Outriders Africa later this year, Jenni Fagan and Harry Josephine Giles...
Lies, Damned Lies and US Politicians
Wednesday 14 August 14:00 - 15:00
In To Kill the Truth, America stands on the brink of a second Civil War. Former White House operative Maggie Costello is drawn back to politics when a series of crimes suggest a campaign to rewrite history and bring global chaos. Sam Bourne – aka...
2019 Programme Launched: We Need New Stories 
