MELVYN BRAGG and Antonia Fraser are among the big names lined up for the fourth Henley Literary Festival in the autumn.
Actor and director Steven Berkoff, million-selling novelist Lionel Shriver, the BBC’s Fergal Keane and journalist and writer Max Hastings will also be appearing at the five-day festival.
There will be more than 100 events taking place from September 29 to October 3 at a number of venues, including, for the first time, St Mary’s Church.
Both Lord Bragg and Lady Antonia will be talking about very personal and emotional books. The former South Bank Show presenter has written a poignant novel Remember Me, a fictional story but based on the devasating suicide of his first wife, the French artist and writer Lisa Roche.
Lady Antonia’s Must You Go? is made up of diary entries and memories from the 33 years she spent with the playwright Harold Pinter until his death on Christmas Eve 2008.
Berkoff has written an account of his upbringing in the East End — with excursions to Luton and America — in his honest and moving Diary Of A Juvenile Delinquent.
Sir Max, too, has written an autobiography with the amusing title Did You Really Shoot The Television? (And yes, he did).
Keane has written Road Of Bones, an account of the Siege of Kohimar at the end of the Second World War which will appeal to fans of historical books.
Shriver became a world-wide best-seller with We Need To Talk About Kevin and will be making her second appearance at the festival to discuss her new book, So Much For That. She is one of several authors who asked to return to Henley as they enjoyed the festival last year.
Another was Gervaise Phinn, the Yorkshire Dales schools inspector who turned his experiences into scores of best-selling novels. This time he will be talking about his autobiography.
Festival director Sue Ryan. said: “Both Lionel and Gervaise sold out last year so this gives people who couldn’t get tickets last year another chance to come.
“The response from authors has been tremendous. The reputation of the festival is such that we now have publishers asking if their authors can come to Henley and that is down to the support and enthusiasm of the town.
“To reach this stage in such a relatively short time is something we could only dream of. We have increased the number of days to five and events to 100 because of the high calibre of the speakers. I think we are well on the way to having our best festival this year.”
The festival website has been redesigned by Thought by Design and there will be professional sound engineers in the town hall this year and a more sophisticated ticketing system. St Mary’s will be used for some of the bigger events that are likely to sell out.
People can gain priority booking by becoming a Friend of the festival at www.henleyliteraryfestival.co.uk
A party for Friends will take place on the New Orleans on Tuesday, June 22 from 6pm to 8pm and anyone wanting to join can come along. Organisers will be revealing a fuller list of authors at this event.
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Published on 07 June 2010
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