Hay Festival 2020 was cancelled and replaced by Hay Festival Digital 2020

The BBC’s International Editor has covered the Middle East since 1989 and is uniquely placed to explain its complex past and troubled present. In his new book, he meets ordinary men and women on the front line, their leaders, whether brutal or benign, and explores the power games that have so often wreaked devastation on civilian populations as those leaders, whatever their motives, jostle for political, religious and economic control. With his deep understanding of the political, cultural and religious differences between countries as diverse as Erdoğan’s Turkey, Assad's Syria and Netanyahu's Israel, he offers readers an authoritative guide to the modern Middle East.

Bowen is in conversation with Sune Engel Rasmussen, Correspondent at The Wall Street Journal covering Afghanistan, Iran and North European affairs.

Due to popular demand this is event is repeated- Event 389 Monday 29 May 8.30pm

Older women have often been sidelined, or ignored completely, in fiction, but novelists Joanne Harris and Fran Littlewood are here to correct that in conversation with psychotherapist Maxine Mei-Fung Chung. Joanne Harris’ Broken Light follows a 50-year-old whose dreams and ambitions have been forgotten by everyone, including herself, and whose childhood memories – and a hidden talent – are unlocked by a murder. Fran Littlewood’s Amazing Grace Adams takes place across a single day, following the titular character as she seeks to reconnect with her daughter and husband. Join Harris and Littlewood as they discuss how ‘women of a certain age’ are far from invisible and boring.

Welcome to the world of seaweed, one of the most versatile plants on our planet both for biodiversity and human use. Critically important in the natural world as a diverse habitat, seaweeds also are tremendously versatile; their uses range from food to clothing and an alternative to plastic, as well as being key to coastal protection and fisheries enhancement. Vincent Doumeizel, senior advisor for United Nations Global Compact, director food programme at Lloyd’s Register Foundation and author of The Seaweed Revolution, leads an interactive showcase with some of the world’s best seaweed specialists.

Mystery and myth await you as debut author Clara Kumagai spins the tale of a Japan fractured in time by an infamous monster. There’s a catfish under the islands and when it rolls the land rises and falls. Sora hates the catfish, whose rolling caused an earthquake so powerful it cracked time itself. It destroyed her home and took her mother. After Sora’s father goes missing too, she has no choice but to venture into uncharted spaces within the ruptured time zones to find him, her mother and perhaps even the catfish itself...

This outstanding coming-of-age YA novel weaves themes of identity, ecology, loss and love. Set in a world of Japanese myth, folklore and magical realism, it’s perfect for fans of Studio Ghibli.

Come and join Rooted Forest School for outdoor family sessions inspired by the Forest School approach. We’ll use foraged materials to craft natural items that you can take away with you, taking part in some simple tool use and finishing off with a hot apple juice around the fire. These sessions are aimed at families and will run whatever the weather, so make sure you’re wrapped up for the conditions.

As the climate, biodiversity and food supply crises become ever more urgent, George Monbiot and Minette Batters debate the major issues facing farming and society, and the plans for future food production from the small-holding to the astonishing potential of new food technologies, such as precision fermentation. What are the implications for consumers, farmers and the living world? Monbiot is a Guardian columnist and the author of Feral, Regenesis and Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis. He won the Orwell Prize for journalism in 2022 for his decades-long commitment to neglected environmental issues. Minette Batters is a farmer and the President of the National Farmers’ Union of England and Wales.
Chaired by Jane Davidson, Chair of Wales Net Zero 2035 and former Chair of the Wales Inquiry of Food, Farming and Countryside Commission. Currently Pro Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and author of #futuregen: Lessons from a Small Country

Dr Jim Down, a consultant in critical care and anaesthesia at University College London Hospitals, brings us to the very heart of the intensive care unit with stories about patients including a poisoned Russian spy and the victims of a terrorist bomb, a major rail crash, Covid and an Ebola-like virus. Delving into ethical conundrums such as what gives life meaning, how much suffering is too much and, in a cash-strapped NHS, who should get to decide, he describes the quietly heroic work of doctors and nurses on the ICU, and explains with unflinching honesty the toll working there eventually took on his own mental health.

The authors of The Science and Art of Dreaming explain the psychology and neuroscience of dreaming. They describe how dream-sharing increases empathy between people, and explore art and surrealism. Mark Blagrove is a professor of psychology at Swansea University specialising in the study of sleep and dreams. Julia Lockheart set up the Metadesign Research Centre at Swansea College of Art and in 2016 began an art science collaboration with Blagrove.

Go on a journey of self-discovery with Andrew Aziza, the protagonist of The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa. Preoccupied with hanging out with friends, grappling with his fantasies about white girls, and obsessing over mathematical theorems, ideas of black power and HXVX: the Curse of Africa, Andy’s life is thrown off balance when he falls in love with Eileen and an unfamiliar man claims to be his father. Stephen Buoro, a recipient of the Booker Prize Foundation scholarship, talks to historian David Olusoga about creating Andy Africa and writing a tragicomedy.

Find your inner fire in this interactive event with Lee Newbery. He’ll introduce his magical novel The Last Firefox and its sequel The First Shadowdragon, a heartwarming story about family and friendship. Explore Newbery’s writing journey and inspiration, then design your own magical creature in a Pokémon card activity and take part in a Welsh animal words quiz! The event will also offer a sensitive introduction to adoption for children in the audience, and celebrate all the different types of families in the world.

Come and join Rooted Forest School for outdoor family sessions inspired by the Forest School approach. We’ll use foraged materials to craft natural items that you can take away with you, taking part in some simple tool use and finishing off with a hot apple juice around the fire. These sessions are aimed at families and will run whatever the weather, so make sure you’re wrapped up for the conditions.

To solve the global challenges we face, we need our best brain power. So how do we create genius environments, help our brains flourish and boost group thinking to achieve that? Neuroscientist and author of The Science of Fate Hannah Critchlow shares why two heads are better than one, electrifying our minds with brain synchronicity, exploring the power of intuition and increasing our tolerance for uncertainty. Her new book is Joined-Up Thinking: The Science of Collective Intelligence and its Power to Change our Lives.

Two of our greatest living novelists speak to literary critic Chris Power about their new books. Booker Prize-winner John Banville’s The Lock-Up is the latest novel in his Stafford and Quirke historical crime series, and sees the pair investigate their most puzzling case yet, that of a woman discovered dead in an apparent suicide in a lock-up garage in Dublin. Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Ford’s Be Mine sees him return to the character of Frank Bascombe, now in the twilight of life and finding himself a carer to his son Paul, who has ALS. In Bascombe’s story is a profound, funny, poignant love letter to our beleaguered world.

Banville and Ford are in conversation with award-winning historian, author, and broadcaster Professor Suzannah Lipscomb.

In Nomad Century, science writer and broadcaster Gaia Vince – the first woman to win the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize – presents an urgent investigation of the most underreported, seismic consequence of climate change: how it will force us to change where – and how – we live. With every degree of temperature rise, a billion people will be displaced from the zone in which humans have lived for thousands of years. But the reality is that huge swathes of the world are becoming uninhabitable. Vince, in a rousing call to arms, describes how we can plan for and manage this unavoidable climate migration while we restore the planet to a fully habitable state. She talks to Tom Bullough, author of Sarn Helen.

Go behind the scenes of the justice system with three insiders who have seen the best and worst the judiciary has to offer. Joseph was the only woman judge at the Old Bailey Bench from 2012 until her retirement this year, writes about how the juridic system is failing people in her book Unlawful Killings: Life, Love and Murder – Trials at the Old Bailey. Sands is a writer and lawyer whose latest book The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain’s Colonial Legacy is the story of Liseby Elysé, a victim of British colonialism when the country deported the people of Diego García, in Chagos Archipelago. Lady Hale formerly served as president of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, a career described in her autobiography, Spider Woman: A Life. They talk to lawyer and human rights advocate Baroness Helena Kennedy.

Explore friendship and what really matters in families with author Anna Woltz and translator David Colmer as they discuss this funny and heartwarming novel featuring 12-year-old Tess and her friend Sam, on a mission to find a missing dad. My Especially Weird Week with Tess has been made into an award-winning film, My Extraordinary Summer with Tess.

Actor Tovey and Diament, director of the Carl Freedman Gallery and Counter Editions in Margate, discuss some of the most profound, interesting, moving, funny and informative moments from their popular Talk Art podcast. Exploring the inspirations, art experiences and favourite artists of a fascinating range of creative people from Grayson Perry to Elton John, Tracey Emin to Paul Smith, this is a down-to-earth discussion about art, accessible to everyone. Tovey is an actor best known for appearing in The History Boys, Being Human and American Horror Story. Before working in art, Diament was lead singer of electro-pop band Temposhark.

Tovey and Diament are joined by British fabric sculptor, designer, and campaigner Daniel Lismore.

Writers Tania Branigan and Xiaolu Guo speak to the Guardian and Observer’s senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison about their work, the past and present of China, and the Chinese cultural role in the world. Branigan is a journalist for the Guardian and author of Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution, a book about the people who lived under Mao’s regime and how the Cultural Revolution affects China today. Guo was born in China and her most recent book is the memoir Radical, which she wrote after moving to New York for work, leaving her child and partner in London. The encounter with American culture and people threatened her sense of identity and threw her into a crisis, and Radical is a playful and deeply personal take on carving out a life of her own.