The Aldeburgh Literary Festival
Thank you to all the audience who came to The Seventh Aldeburgh Literary Festival 2008 (29th February to 2nd March). We hope you enjoyed it. Click here to see some pictures of this year's festival.
The Aldeburgh Literary Festival takes place on the first weekend in March each year. Dates for next year's festival are 6th, 7th and 8th March. It is presented by The Aldeburgh Bookshop.
Charles Moore described it in his Spectator diary as 'quite the nicest literary festival' (click here to see the full entry). Charles Allen wrote that he and his wife had 'been to many literary festivals but I can honestly say that Aldeburgh's combination of bracing sea air, intimacy and intellectual sharpness puts it at the very top of our list.'
We are proud to have introduced two Nobel Literary Prize winners to Aldeburgh, Harold Pinter and Doris Lessing, as well as Michael Frayn, Alan Bennett, A. S. Byatt, Julian Barnes, Will Self, Richard Dawkins and Matt Ridley and we have heard talks on Erasmus Darwin, the Paston letters, Samuel Pepys, Wahhabism, and Vichy France, amongst many other subjects.
A list of speakers at our previous festivals appears below:
The Seventh Aldeburgh Literary Festival 2008
Garth Fowden, Kate Drayton on the Brontes, Irene Noel-Baker on Plato, Charles Allen on Kipling, Will Self, Rosemary Hill on Pugin, Posy Simmonds, General Sir Michael Rose, Adam Phillips and Craig Brown, A. S. Byatt and Carmen Callil, John Preston and Libby Purves, Julian Barnes, James Buchan on Adam Smith, and John Guy and Julia Fox.
The Sixth Aldeburgh Literary Weekend 2007
Adam Crick on Henry Green, Kate Drayton on Jane Austen, Literary Lunch with Denis and Edna Healey, Jon Canter and John Walsh, Carmen Callil, Matt Ridley on Francis Crick, William Boyd, Xandra Bingley, Sir Peter Shaffer interviewed by Mark Lawson, Frank Gardner in conversation with John McCarthy, Helen Castor on The Paston Family, David Profumo and Nicholas Mosley interviewed by Craig Brown, and Libby Purves.
The Fifth Aldeburgh Literary Weekend 2006
Adam Crick on W. G. Sebald, Colin Sydenham on Horace, Nicci French, John Guy on Mary Queen of Scots, Jane Gardam, Hilary Spurling on Matisse, Claire Tomalin on Pepys, Michael Frayn in conversation with Anthony Gottlieb, Charles Moore and Barnaby Rogerson on Jihad and Crusade, Jenny Uglow on The Lunar Men, Ian McEwan, A Tribute to Willie Donaldson.
The Fourth Aldeburgh Literary Weekend 2005
Charles Allen, Beryl Bainbridge, Sally Beauman, Tony Benn, Craig Brown, Charles Clover, Adam Crick, Lady Antonia Fraser, Sue Gee, Deborah Moggach, Sam Newton, Harold Pinter, Barnaby Rogerson, Francis Wheen.
The Third Aldeburgh Literary Weekend 2004
Craig Brown, Dr. John Casey, Selina Hastings, Katie Hickman, Richard Holmes, Elizabeth Jane Howard, Pascal Khoo Thwe, David Lodge, Libby Purves, Brough Scott, Miranda Seymour, Hugh Thomas, Rose Tremain, Joanna Trollope, A.N. Wilson.
The Second Aldeburgh Literary Weekend 2003
Craig Brown, Humphrey Carpenter, Helen Cross, Richard Dawkins, William Fiennes, Aminatta Forna, Simon Hoggart, Anthony Horowitz, Doris Lessing, Hugh Massingberd, Christopher Matthew, Alexander McCall Smith, Libby Purves, Carol Ray, Jane Ridley, Matt Ridley, Salley Vickers.
The First Aldeburgh Literary Festival 2002
Ronald Blythe, Stanley Wells, John Humphrys, Paul Heiney, P. D. James, Craig Brown, Matt Ridley, Anthony Gottlieb, Esther Freud, Lavinia Greenlaw, Julie Myerson, Alan Bennett, Miranda Seymour, Humphrey Burton, Libby Purves, Clare Francis.