Earlybird Events

Alexander McCall Smith’s much loved character Precious Ramotswe first came to life on the pages of The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency 25 years ago. Join us as we celebrate this global success. The author gives us insights into his writing career and a glimpse of the many series that have been published in the intervening years, including 44 Scotland Street series and a new novel in the Detective Varg series, The Discreet Charm of the Big Bad Wolf.

The author and broadcaster presents a powerful, career-spanning collection of his journalism on race, racism and Black life and death from Africa, the Caribbean, Europe and the United States. For three decades, Younge has had a ringside seat at the most significant events and personalities to impact the Black diaspora and recounts these in Dispatches From the Diaspora: accompanying Nelson Mandela on his first election campaign, joining revellers on the southside of Chicago during Obama’s victory and entering New Orleans days after hurricane Katrina. We see him with Maya Angelou in her limousine, discussing politics with Stormzy on his couch and witnessing Archbishop Desmond Tutu almost fall asleep mid-interview. He discusses how much change is possible and the power of systems to thwart those aspirations with author and educator Jeffrey Boakye.

Celebrate the 30th year of A Squash and A Squeeze in a fun-packed hour of stories and songs based on the author’s many books. She performs with her guitar-playing husband Malcolm and other actors, bringing to life her much treasured and brand new stories. Get ready to join in!

There will be a BSL interpreter at this event

The super-star space scientist is back with her second book, and is ready to answer your questions about the wonders of the universe. Reach for the stars with questions like…is it raining gemstones on Jupiter? What do astronauts have for dinner on the International Space Station?

Rukmini Iyer’s Roasting Tin series has sold over 1.5 million copies globally in five years. She’s a recipe writer, food stylist and former lawyer who loves creating easy recipes and believes that making time to eat well – for yourself or for family dinners – is an integral part of the day. Her approach to cooking Indian food, shown in her new book India Express, is inspired by seeing the ease with which her mother switched between Indian meals to recipes from Delia, Linda McCartney, and Jamie – keeping traditional flavourings, but looking at ways to put easy week-night dinners on the table. As well as writing cookbooks, Iyer styles and writes recipes for the Guardian, BBC Good Food, Waitrose, and Fortnum & Mason.

There will be a BSL interpreter at this event

The anthologist Allie Esiri returns to Hay to celebrate Shakespeare for Every day of the Year, marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio, with an all-star cast including Helena Bonham Carter (Harry Potter, The Crown), Tom Goodman-Hill (The Imitation Game, Rebecca), Jessica Raine (Call the Midwife, The Devil's Hour), Tony Robinson (Blackadder, Tony Robinson’s History of Britain), Simon Schama (A History of Britain, Foreign Bodies), Jordan Stephens (Rogue One, Catastrophe), Rhashan Stone (All About Eve, Keeping Faith), Samuel West (All Creatures Great and Small) and Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense, The Crown).

Please note that the final line-up may be subject to change.

The Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and Hay Festival present the first of a series of debates about the future of Europe. Journalist Misha Glenny discusses the rise of autocracy with: historian Orlando Figes, author of The Story of Russia; Zsuzsanna Szelényi, an Hungarian politician and foreign policy specialist, author of Tainted Democracy: Viktor Orbán and the Subversion of Hungary; Ece Temelkuran, Turkish novelist and political thinker; and Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times columnist and writer.

On Henry Kissinger’s 100th birthday, David Miliband, CEO of the International Rescue Committee and former UK Foreign Secretary, discusses the American century – and whether we’re still living in it. He’ll be in conversation with David Runciman for a special live episode of Runciman’s new podcast Past Present Future, presented in partnership with the London Review of Books.

The historian was one of the first to enter the newly opened Soviet archives in 1985 and has spent 40 years working on, and in, Russia. When did the creation of Russia’s national mythology begin? Why have its leaders rewritten the past? Is Vladimir Putin likely to follow in the footsteps of his doomed hero, Nicholas I? The Story of Russia starts with Russia’s beginnings in the first millennium and ends with the invasion of Ukraine. The author brings into sharp relief the recurring stories and vibrant characters that make up Russia’s rich history, too often analysed without knowledge of the country’s past. He talks to Emma Graham-Harrison, Senior International Affairs Correspondent for the Guardian and Observer.

Join actor, writer and Rizzle Kicks member Jordan Stephens along with illustrator Beth Suzanna for an interactive storytelling adventure to find The Missing Piece. A heart-warming, fresh and original picture-book event about family and friendship. Beth Suzanna is Hay Festival’s 2023 Illustrator in Residence.

Please bring your own sketchbook and pencils to draw along in this event. You can buy these at the Hay Festival shop.

To mark the publication of his latest book, a collection of his best sport writings alongside new thoughts on the world of sport as he sees it, Sir Michael Parkinson is in conversation with his son Mike, co-author of My Sporting Life: Memories, Moments and Declarations. Showing highlights from the Parkinson archive, this special Hay Festival event is a unique opportunity to get an intimate, entertaining and informative look at his remarkable journey from a pit village in Yorkshire, via rejection at the Yorkshire nets, earning a living watching and writing about sport to eventually finding himself at the top of those famous stairs as host of a show that for many defined their Saturday night.

Join the Horrible Histories guru, author and podcast host as he takes you on a trip through the amazing history hidden in the things we use every day. Did you know that the first TV was made out of biscuit tins and knitting needles? Or that the humble paperclip helped lead an anti-war movement? Or that a few hundred years ago it was fashionable to style your hair with cat poo?! Find out the delightful, daft history of everyday life that your teachers won’t tell you about. This is history – but not as you know it!

There will be a BSL interpreter at this event

The historian discusses her non-fiction book about a group of extraordinary thinkers who gathered in the small German city of Jena in the 18th century, introducing ideas and concepts that permeated through the following centuries. She gives us an overview of the most important ideas of Romantic philosophy and how they have influenced our thinking. Wulf was the winner of the Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer’s Award 2013. In conversation with journalist and broadcaster Misha Glenny.

We have long been taught to presume that modern global history began when the ‘Old World’ encountered the ‘New’, when Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ America in 1492. But, as Caroline Dodds Pennock conclusively shows in her groundbreaking book, for tens of thousands of Aztecs, Maya, Totonacs, Inuit and others – enslaved people, diplomats, explorers, servants, traders – the reverse was true: they discovered Europe. For them, Europe comprised savage shores – a land of riches and marvels, yet perplexing for its brutal disparities of wealth and quality of life, and its baffling beliefs. The story of these Indigenous Americans abroad is a story of abduction, loss, cultural appropriation, and, as they saw it, of apocalypse – a story that has largely been absent from our collective imagination of the times. She speaks to historian, writer and broadcaster David Olusoga.

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.

The British-Ghanaian writer and photographer Caleb Azumah Nelson introduces us to Stephen, whose problems are forgotten in music and dance. Dancing at church, with his parents and brother, the shimmer of Black hands raised in praise; he might have lost his faith, but he does believe in rhythm. Dancing with his band, making music that speaks to the hardships and the joys of their lives. Dancing with his best friend Adeline, two-stepping around the living room, crooning and grooving, so close their heads might touch. Dancing alone, at home, to his father's records, uncovering parts of a man he has never truly known. But what becomes of him when the music fades? When his father begins to speak of shame and sacrifice, when his home is no longer his own? Set over the course of three summers in Stephen's life, from London to Ghana and back again, Small Worlds is an expansive novel about the worlds we build for ourselves, the worlds we live, dance and love within. Nelson’s first novel, Open Water, won the Costa Book Award for First Novel and Debut Novel of the Year British Book Award. Join him as he talks to journalist and editor Alex Clark about creating the novel’s music-filled world.

The novelist, musician and screenwriter, who writes in Welsh and English, presents the story of twins Ana and Nan, lost after the death of their mother, a renowned author who seemingly killed herself by jumping out of a window, naming her biographer and critic Eben as being responsible for her death. During a night shift in their job at the labyrinthine National Library of Wales, the twins plan to enact their revenge on Eben by locking down the building. But when one rogue security guard starts upsetting the plan and freeing captives, Ana, Nan and Eben find themselves pushed to the limit and what began as a single-minded act of revenge blooms into a complex unravelling of loyalties and motives. Fflur Dafydd is a former Hay Festival International Fellow and has been nominated for several BAFTA Cymru awards for her screenwriting work.

The enormity of climate change and biodiversity loss can leave us feeling overwhelmed. How can an individual ever make a difference? Isabella Tree and her husband, conservationist Charlie Burrell, know first-hand how spectacularly nature can bounce back if we give it the chance. And what comes is not just wildlife in super-abundance, but solutions to the other environmental crises we face. Rewilding is a spectrum, and everyone is on it. Whether we have a garden or a window-box, a tree or some roadside verge, there is no space too small. Tree’s The Book of Wilding is a handbook for how we can all help restore nature. It is ambitious, visionary and pragmatic and explains how every one of us can play a part in rewilding our world. Tree talks about her manifesto of hope with Ben Goldsmith, author of God is an Octopus: Loss, Love and a Calling to Nature, in which, struggling to comprehend the shocking death of his teenage daughter, he finds solace in immersing himself in plans to rewild his Somerset farm.

She's back! Internationally renowned poet, novelist and prophet Margaret Atwood returns to Hay. This new collection of 15 stories explore the warp and weft of experience, from two best friends disagreeing about their shared past, to the right way to stop someone from choking; from a daughter determining if her mother really is a witch, to what to do with inherited relics such as World War II parade swords. They feature beloved cats, a confused snail, Martha Gellhorn, George Orwell, mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria, a cabal of elderly female academics, and an alien tasked with retelling human fairy tales. At the heart of the collection is a sequence that follows a married couple as they travel the road together, the moments big and small that make up a long life of love – and what comes after.

There will not be a book signing after this event.

We are familiar with the idea of our body’s biome – the bacterial fauna that populate our gut and can so profoundly affect our health. The next frontier of scientific understanding is discovering our body’s electrome. Every cell in our bodies – bones, skin, nerves, muscle – has a voltage, like a tiny battery. This bioelectricity is why our brains can send signals to our bodies, why we develop the way we do in the womb and how our bodies know to heal themselves from injury. When bioelectricity goes awry, illness, deformity and cancer can result. But could there be an undo switch for cancer to flip malignant cells back into healthy ones; the ability to regenerate cells, organs, even limbs; to slow ageing?

The science writer explores the history of bioelectricity, from Galvani’s epic 18th century battle with the inventor of the battery, Alessandro Volta, to the medical charlatans claiming to use electricity to cure pretty much anything, to advances in the field helped along by the unusually massive axons of squid.