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Hundreds of events for adults, teenagers and children feature authors, illustrators, musicians, poets, policians, thinkers, prize-winners and rising stars every August.
Imagine trying to escape from Auschwitz as a teenager, hiding for three days, while 3,000 SS and their bloodhounds search for you. This is the story of Rudolf Vrba, whose report on the atrocity of Auschwitz reached Roosevelt, Churchill and the Pope,...
One of three major performances this year looking at today’s Scotland through the lens of its past, present and future, Hear No Evil is based on the debut novel by Sarah Smith. This production uses a fusion of sign language, image and performance to...
Andy West teaches philosophy in prisons. His debut, The Life Inside, is an account of his work discussing life’s most significant questions with people living behind bars. West shares compelling metaphysical insights and paints a revealing picture of...
When Simon Woolley created Operation Black Vote in 1996, he inspired hundreds of thousands of people to participate in the democratic process. Raised on an impoverished estate in Leicester, he has become a political force to be reckoned with, the first...
Leading human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith was brought up by an obsessive man. Following his father’s death, through his letters, Stafford Smith uncovered a picture of someone deeply troubled. In The Far Side of the Moon he sets what he learned...
For three years, award-winning author of We That Are Young, Preti Taneja taught creative writing in a prison. In 2019, one of her former students attacked an event held in honour of the writing programme, killing two teachers. Taneja’s searching essay...
As the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Abdulrazak Gurnah is riding a wave of new interest in his writing. Gurnah emigrated from his native Zanzibar in his youth and his stories are infused with issues of identity and displacement....
This is one Uyghur woman’s astonishing story of survival. More than a million Uyghur Muslims are incarcerated in Chinese detention units: China describes them as re-education camps while human rights organisations accuse China of genocide. Gulbahar...
In 1940, the British government ordered the internment of all German refugees in a camp on the Isle of Man. Behind the barbed wire were large numbers of talented experts and artists, who soon transformed the camp into a centre of creative endeavour....
China, the USA and Britain: three nations at very different stages in their imperial trajectories. Yet each has fought to retain power – often by questionable means. Three experts come together to compare these superpower states: Kerry Brown’s Xi...
Announcing our Communities Programme and Citizen events this August 
