Explore the Festival programme

The Edinburgh International Book Festival takes place from 15-30 August 2026. The programme will be available in June 2026. Sign up for our ebulletins or follow us on social media to hear announcements and updates.

In the meantime, you can enjoy watching nearly 150 events from the 2025 Festival on our website. 

2024 Book Festival Highlights

20240811.Chris.Scott.029.IMG_3491_
EIBF - Phographer- Aly Wight - Sat 10-08-24 - File-06628
Sami Tamimi by Rob MacDougall ROB_5547 - Copy
EIBF - Phographer- Aly Wight - Sat 10-08-24 - File-6834
BT6A1169 - Colin MacIntyre by Sally Jubb
20240820.Chris.Scott.002.IMG_7686

View more photos

Look, Listen & read

The Front List: Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Front List: Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning, uncompromising commentator on race relations, truth, and justice, especially in America. He’ll discuss the urgent need for the West, and particularly America, to free itself from the myths it tells itself…

Anne Enright with Vicky Featherstone: Mothers and Daughters (2020 Event)
Anne Enright with Vicky Featherstone: Mothers and Daughters (2020 Event)

‘You were always sitting in character, you were just never sure which one.’ So says Norah to the memory of her mother in Actress, the new novel by Anne Enright. The mother in…

Ian Rankin: A Rebus for the Dark Times (2020 Event)
Ian Rankin: A Rebus for the Dark Times (2020 Event)

We have all become familiar with living through these strange times but for Ian Rankin 2020 was unusual in more ways than one. For starters, even though the number one bestselling…

Freedom of Movement and What It Means in Europe
Freedom of Movement and What It Means in Europe by Hsiao-Hung Pai

A few days after I arrived in Lampedusa, an Italian island nearer to Africa than to Europe, I met Jahid, Saeed and Asif, all under 18 years of age who came from a village in Bangladesh, who had been rescued from a sinking dinghy in the Mediterranean…