Ideas

Approach the natural world with awe, as environmental justice researcher Joycelyn Longdon merges ancient wisdom with modern technology. Talking to travel and adventure writer Dan Richards, she inspires us to view climate action as a shared goal rather than an individual burden.

Longdon, an AI and bioacoustics researcher at the University of Cambridge, examines rage, imagination, innovation, theory, healing and care in Natural Connection. The book celebrates the histories and extraordinary acts of ordinary people who have paved the way for today’s environmental movement, bringing together stories and wisdom from marginalised people and celebrating the power of community.

Five innovative garden designers bring their unique vision to mitigating the effects of climate change, encouraging biodiversity and boosting well-being.

Tayshan Hayden-Smith created the Grenfell Garden of Peace following the 2017 Grenfell Tower fire tragedy. Harry Holding is an environmentally conscious landscape and garden designer who won the RHS People’s Choice Award 2023 and RHS Feature Garden 2024. Eelco Hooftman is a landscape architect who has taught at the School of Landscape Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art. Anna Liu is an architect with over 15 years’ experience in art and landscape in Taiwan, Japan, China, USA and UK. Ann-Marie Powell is a broadcaster and designs gardens for private clients, companies and charities.

Hayden-Smith, Holding, Hooftman, Liu and Powell have created ‘The Community Garden’, ‘The Food and Medicine Garden’, ‘The Botanic Garden’, ‘The Garden Square’ and ‘The Family Garden’ respectively for the British Library’s new exhibition Unearthed: The Power of Gardening.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee!

Among today’s guests are Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University Kehinde Andrews, author of The New Age of Empire, and award-winning director Havana Marking, whose documentary Undercover: Exposing the Far Right is screening at the Festival on 28 May.

Renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins guides us through The Genetic Book of the Dead, a groundbreaking exploration of the untapped potential of DNA to transform our understanding of evolution.

Dawkins explains how the body, behaviour and genes of every living creature can be read as a book – an archive of the worlds of its ancestors.

Dawkins is an eminent writer and thinker, author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, and The God Delusion, among others. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Literature. He talks to science writer and broadcaster, Vivienne Parry.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee!

Among today’s guests are philosopher AC Grayling, founder and principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, Jennifer Nadel an award winning journalist, activist and founder of the Compassion in Politics and former BBC North America editor Jon Sopel, author of Strangeland.

Defending freedom of expression, a central principle of any democratic society, is a main goal of the global PEN network, which was joined by Wales PEN Cymru in 2014. But what does freedom of speech mean in today’s divided world? Three writers and free speech advocates discuss the concept with poet and academic Mererid Hopwood.

Fara Dabhoiwala is Senior Research Scholar and Professor of History at Princeton and author of What is Free Speech? Menna Elfyn is a poet, author and President of Wales PEN Cymru. Burhan Sönmez, novelist and President of PEN International, grew up in a Kurdish village in Turkey at a time when his language was stigmatised and banned in education.

Historian and writer Philipp Blom talks to translator Daniel Hahn about the idea that human beings can subdue nature and rule over it. Born in Mesopotamia at the dawn of civilisation, the idea of subjugating the Earth was included in the Bible, reached Europe through Christianity, and spread to the entire world through colonialism.

It is only with the climate crisis that it has become apparent that the subjugation of nature must be a self-defeating ambition. Blom discusses his new book on the topic, Subjugate the Earth, with Hahn.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee!

Among today’s guests are ITV’s deputy political editor Anushka Asthana, author of Taken As Red: How Labour Won Big and the Tories Crashed the Party, BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen, Fara Dabhoiwala, historian and author of What is Free Speech and Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent and Senior Presenter.

What is a planet? And what makes Earth so special? Take a new look at the world around you with the space scientist and broadcaster. She explains that the story of Earth is best understood as part of its larger family, where each planet becomes a character with a story of its own to tell, from Jupiter, the King of the Solar System, to ice oddity Uranus and outlier planet-but-not-a-planet Pluto.

Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock has worked in both industrial and academic environments. As a broadcaster and author she works to encourage underrepresented communities to enter STEM and to make science more accessible to young girls, literally encouraging them to ‘reach for the stars’. Her latest book The Story of the Solar System: A Visual Journey brings the space family to life.

History is often shaped by those in power, leaving many voices unheard and ignored, and many stories untold. Acclaimed authors and historians Atinuke, Joya Chatterji and Kavita Puri come together in this panel, chaired by journalist Sonia Faleiro, to explore how narratives of empire, migration and identity are reclaimed through storytelling.

From personal histories to collective memory, they will discuss the power of literature and research in challenging dominant narratives and restoring silenced voices.

Atinuke is author of Africa, Amazing Africa, an introduction to Africa aimed at young people. Chatterji is Emeritus Professor of South Asian History at the University of Cambridge. Puri is a journalist whose latest BBC podcast Three Million won Gold at the British Podcast Awards. She is this year’s chair of the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction. Faleiro is a writer who founded South Asia Speaks, a mentorship programme spanning eight countries.

Start the day at Hay Festival with headline guests chaired by editors from The Independent reviewing the news, discussing the headlines and issues of the day, and revealing what’s breaking and trending online. A fascinating look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury. Bring your coffee!

Among today’s guests are publisher of Granta magazine and Granta Books Sigrid Rausing and Philippe Sands KC, Professor of Law at University College London and author of East West Street.

Academic Simon Baron-Cohen and journalist John Harris discuss the science of neurodivergence, what it means in theory and in practice, and delve into their personal and professional experiences of autism. They look at the ongoing revolutions in our understanding of neurodivergence, and neurodivergence’s deep links to human creativity.

Baron-Cohen is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Autism Research Centre (ARC) in Cambridge. Baron-Cohen’s current research is testing the ‘extreme male brain’ theory of autism at the neural, endocrine and genetic levels.

Harris, a columnist at the Guardian, is author of Maybe I’m Amazed, a book about his autistic son James, and how music and songs became their most precious source of connection. Harris writes regularly for music magazine Mojo and has won awards including the Orwell Prize for Political Journalism and the UK Press Award for Political Commentator of the Year.

Do the stories we tell ourselves shape our destiny? And what do stories say about us? Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent and senior presenter, considers Joan Didion’s famous quote: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

Doucet explores the global shift in finding ourselves through stories, borrowing narratives from many sources, escaping from the daily bombardment of negative news and shifting to podcasts, long form narratives, to frame our own sense of self.