An inspiring mix of writers and thinkers will take to the stage for Hay Festival After Hours: Bristol, including novelist and essayist Rana Dasgupta, historian Colin Grant, poet and novelist Vanessa Kisuule, and writer and documentary-maker Zakia Sewell.
Taking place at Bristol Beacon on Thursday 26 March 2026, 7.30pm, Hay Festival After Hours: Bristol promises a night of big ideas, provocations and new thinking.
This is a chance to experience all the excitement of the world-famous Festival in one magical evening, a space where art forms collide and great minds meet.
The evening will see a quartet of prize-winning writers and thinkers: Rana Dasgupta will explore a world in political freefall, discussing his new book, After Nations: The Making and Unmaking of a World Order; Zakia Sewell will take Britain beyond divisive national myths and symbols, presenting her new book, In Finding Albion, in conversation with historian Colin Grant; and poet and novelist Vanessa Kisuule will explore the boundaries of cultural storytelling and how audiences can engage with the arts.
Founded in Hay-on-Wye, Wales in 1987, Hay Festival provides audiences with dynamic platforms to come together to share ideas, different perspectives and to provoke conversations that can create a better world.
Hay Festival Global CEO Julie Finch said:
“After a sold-out After Hours debuted Hay Festival in Bristol last spring, we’re back with a new purpose, spotlighting four essential writers for our times in a new evening of conversations and performances. As a charity, we believe culture is for everyone and work to create accessible platforms of free exchange all around the world. It’s going to be a night to remember, Bristol. Join us!”
Zakia Sewell said:
“I’m so excited to be part of this wonderful event and to be speaking alongside writers who I so admire. See you there, Bristol.”
Hay Festival After Hours events take place thanks to the support of the Unwin Charitable Trust. Additional 2026 events will be announced in the coming weeks.
Today’s announcement follows the release of Hay Festival 2026 earlybird events. Scheduled to take place in Wales, 21–31 May, a selection of events can be seen online now at hayfestival.org/hay-on-wye.
Author bios
Rana Dasgupta is the author of two novels and a non-fiction portrait of twenty-first century Delhi. Dasgupta was a visiting fellow in the humanities at Princeton University and has taught as a visiting lecturer at Brown University. His essays have been published in The Guardian, New Statesman, and BBC.com, and his writing has won the Windham Campbell Prize, the Commonwealth Prize, and the Ryszard Kapuściński Award. He lives in Delhi.
Colin Grant is an author of six books. They include: Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey; and a group biography of the Wailers, I&I, The Natural Mystics. His memoir, Bageye at the Wheel, was shortlisted for the Pen/Ackerley Prize, 2013. Grant’s history of epilepsy, A Smell of Burning, was a Sunday Times Book of the Year 2016. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Director of WritersMosaic, an innovative online platform for new writing and a division of the Royal Literary Fund. He also writes for several newspapers and journals including the Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, TLS, London Review of Books, Granta and New York Review of Books.
Vanessa Kisuule is a writer and performer based in Bristol. She has won over ten slam titles including The Roundhouse Slam 2014, Hammer and Tongue National Slam 2014 and the Nuoryican Poetry Slam. She has been featured on BBC iPlayer, Radio 1, and Radio 4’s Woman's Hour, Blue Peter, Don't Flop and TEDx in Vienna. She was the Bristol City Poet for 2018–2020 and she is the co-tutor for Southbank Centre’s New Poets Collective alongside Will Harris. Her debut non-fiction book Neverland: The Pleasures and Perils of Fandom was published in September 2024.
Zakia Sewell is a writer, DJ and broadcaster based in London. She hosts Dream Time on BBC Radio 6 Music, and used to host the flagship breakfast show on NTS radio. For the past eight years she has been producing and presenting radio documentaries and podcasts for platforms such as BBC Radio 3 and 4, Tate and Camden Art Centre. Her acclaimed four-part Radio 4 series My Albion (2020) was an inspiration for her new book. She regularly gives talks and her writing has appeared in publications including Tate Etc., Resident Advisor and Weird Walk and in the essay collection This Woman’s Work (White Rabbit, 2022).