Hay Festival 2023

Family shapes who we are and is one of the things we all have in common. In The World: A Family History, historian Simon Sebag Montefiore takes us through the story of humanity via the unit of the family. Starting with the footsteps of a family walking along a beach 950,000 years ago, he covers the families that have shaped our worlds, from the Medicis and Rothschilds to the Churchills, Kennedys, Kims and more. Simon Sebag Montefiore is in conversation with journalist and presenter Sangita Myska.

A novel of modern India, Santanu Bhattacharya’s debut One Small Voice invites us to spend two decades in the company of Shubhankar. Aged 10, he witnesses a terrible act of mob violence in which his family are complicit, and which changes the course of his life. Wrestling with the past, the expectations of his family and the seismic shifts taking place around him as the country enters the new millennium, Shubhankar one day makes a split-second decision that will change everything. Bhattacharya, who won the 2021 Mo Siewcharran Prize, is in conversation with novelist Max Porter (Grief is the Thing With Feathers, Shy).

Ian McMillan hosts his cabaret of the word, featuring the best poetry, writing and performance.

Guides from the Brecon Beacons National Park will lead a gentle walk through the beautiful surrounds of Hay-on-Wye. You’ll be joined by a guest from the Festival programme.

Hay-on-Wye is based within 520 square miles of beautiful landscape that makes up Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park. The National Park is driving change to bring about a sustainable future, meeting our needs within planetary boundaries. Their Hay Festival series of gentle walks will take you into the town’s local environment while offering the opportunity to learn more about the Park’s work and its treasured landscape.

Please wear appropriate footwear and outdoor gear.

Create your own Hay Castle knight with the Brothers McLeod! The Brothers McLeod are Myles and Greg, author and illustrator of the hilarious Knight Sir Louis series. Join them in the independent kingdom of ‘Hay-Wyre’ to help them create a brand new knight character based in Hay Castle in an event packed with drawing, comics and lots and lots of laughs.

This heart-warming family show, based on the much-loved novels by Tove Jansson, tells the story of a year in Moominvalley. Moomintroll wakes up in the middle of winter with a ‘something-wrong-feeling’. There’s no sign of his good friend Snufkin, or the note Snufkin left him. As winter turns to spring and Snufkin returns, the days lengthen into a lazy summer and ‘the sea brings them all the adventures they could wish for’.

An opportunity to get crafting! Activities differ every day, including everything from print-making to junk modelling with recycled materials. Get messy and creative: your imagination is the limit.

Book for the session and you can drop in at any point during the 2.5 hour duration. Accompanying adults: please stay in attendance at all times, but you do not require a ticket.

Join global superstar, pop icon and book lover Dua Lipa for a tour of the people, places and events that have shaped her life and the books that symbolise these moments, hosted by Booker Prize Foundation director Gaby Wood. Lipa discusses how books have been her constant companion and her lifeline, from her childhood in London and her school years in Kosovo to the long hours spent on a tour bus as a musician. Lipa hosts the podcast Dua Lipa: At Your Service and champions books and authors through her platform Service95.

Irene Vallejo presents an immersive journey through the history of books and libraries in the ancient world which has captivated millions of readers around the world. From the banks of the Nile and the battlefields of Alexander the Great, to the censorship of the humorists and the empowerment of women writers like Sappho, Vallejo enlivens the origins of the book. Its invention was as disruptive as the internet, and through these journeys into the past, Vallejo reflects on the dilemmas of our modern world and the challenges of the future. In conversation with Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian’s chief culture writer.

They go almost unnoticed if you visit a church, but church kneelers are essential, and have a long and storied history. Elizabeth Bingham, the leading authority on Anglican church kneelers, celebrates the design and craft of the cushions and delves into their history, from their beginnings at Winchester in the 1930s to their booming popularity after the Queen's coronation, to the present-day congregations who are keeping the tradition alive. She talks to novelist Kate Mosse.

As an interactive storyteller, you’ll be able to give your audience the power to decide the fate of your characters. Learn how to weave multiple strands of narrative into a single story to create truly immersive worlds. Then discover where you can share them.

Will you A: Come join the fun? B: Lie on the grass, in the sun? C: Be chased by a clown on the run? You decide!

Fabulously funny actor and author Stephen Mangan and tremendously talented illustrator Anita Mangan bring us laughter, games, drawing and sibling stories. The creators of Escape the Rooms and The Fart that Changed the World are back with their laugh-out-loud new book, The Unlikely Rise of Harry Sponge. Get ready to meet a grumpy king without an heir and five kids competing for the throne in the ‘Crown Duels’. Find out what it takes to be the greatest kid in the kingdom and discover how you should never underestimate the underdog.

This heart-warming family show, based on the much-loved novels by Tove Jansson, tells the story of a year in Moominvalley. Moomintroll wakes up in the middle of winter with a ‘something-wrong-feeling’. There’s no sign of his good friend Snufkin, or the note Snufkin left him. As winter turns to spring and Snufkin returns, the days lengthen into a lazy summer and ‘the sea brings them all the adventures they could wish for’.

There is a question everyone has to ask and answer – in fact, has to keep on asking and keep on answering. It is ‘How should I live my life?’, meaning ‘What sort of person should I be? What values shall I live by? What shall I aim for?’ The great majority of people do not ask this question, they merely answer it unthinkingly in conventional ways. This is the ‘Socratic Question’, challenging us to examine the philosophy of life we live by. Everyone has a philosophy of life, but most people do not know that they have one, because they imbibed it unconsciously from society, parents, schools, friends. What are the assumptions of that unconscious philosophy, and the reasons for living according to it? Do these assumptions and reasons survive scrutiny? If one really thought about one’s life and the philosophy that underlies it, what changes would one make?

In Philosophy and Life Grayling explores how to answer the Socratic challenge and examines the most important questions that arise in doing so: death, the great inevitable, love, the great desirable, meaning, the great mystery – and the great hope, happiness. What do these concepts mean – really mean? And what difference will exploring them, and other equally important questions, make to one’s life and its choices? A serious but accessible and stimulating account of what philosophy offers in thinking about life, its value and its meaning.

Discover the lives, loves, adventures and trailblazing musical careers of four now largely forgotten extraordinary women from Leah Broad, a junior research fellow at Christ Church, Oxford University and author of Quartet: How Four Women Changed the Musical World and Alice Farnham, a conductor who has played concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, and Southbank Sinfonia, author of In Good Hands: The Making of a Modern Conductor. In conversation with cultural historian Gavin Plumley, the pair introduce Ethel Smyth, a queer Victorian composer famed for her operas; Rebecca Clarke, a violist who was one of the first women ever hired by a professional orchestra; Dorothy Howell, a prodigy known as the ‘English Strauss’; and Doreen Carwithen, one of Britain’s first woman film composers who scored Elizabeth II’s coronation film.

The causes and immediate consequences of wars are picked over again and again, but less thought often goes into thinking about what the world will look like after a war. Drawing upon the contrast between planning for the post-World War II world and the lack of such planning at the end of the Cold War, Jan Ruzicka – a lecturer in security studies at the University of Aberystwyth – takes us through what the world will look like once the war in Ukraine has ended and asks us to imagine a more secure and safer world.

Explore society’s attitude to men’s mental health today with Alex Holmes, Antonio Mazzone and Benna Waites. Holmes is a podcaster and therapist, and author of Time to Talk: How Men Feel About Love, Belonging and Connection. Mazzone is a film-maker whose film A Day in the Life of Anxiety was based on his own experience. Waites is a consultant clinical psychologist.

Welsh stand-up comedian Robin Morgan attempts to write a routine with the crowd to explore the complexities of writing live comedy.

Tim Peake was the first British astronaut to conduct a spacewalk at the International Space Station, and an inspiration for budding young scientists and astronauts everywhere. In this out-of-this-world event, Peake talks about his first non-fiction book for children, The Cosmic Diary of Our Incredible Universe, in which readers will discover everything from how stars are made, to which fruit can create antimatter. Peake is a former Apache pilot, flight instructor, test pilot and European Space Agency astronaut whose books include his memoir Limitless, and the photography collection Hello, is this Planet Earth?