Supported by Fane Group for the first time this year, we are excited to announce the first few speakers of the 120+ events for adults and children that will take place from October 4-12 at venues across Henley-on-Thames.
Jung Chang, with estimated global sales of 20 million in more than 40 languages, comes to the Festival with Fly, Wild Swans, the long-awaited follow-up to her 1991 memoir Wild Swans, which became Britain’s bestselling non-fiction book. Also appearing at Henley for the first time this October are world-renowned historian Dame Mary Beard, former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, athletics icon Dame Denise Lewis, the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage and leading food critic and broadcaster Jay Rayner.
Events for children of all ages and their grown-ups this year will include How to Train Your Dragon creator Cressida Cowell and Jodie Ounsley, England’s first female deaf senior rugby international who now stars as Fury in Gladiators. These weekend events sit alongside the previously announced weekday schools programme featuring Sathnam Sanghera, Dermot O’Leary, Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce and more.
Peacebuilding practitioner and Iraq expert Nussaibah Younis, whose debut Fundamentally was last month shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, will join fellow novelists Esther Freud and Emma Gannon in conversation. And Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, currently the acting head of the Church of England, returns to the Festival with a book on the Lord’s Prayer.
Tickets will go on sale to Gold and Platinum Friends on July 4, Friends on July 8 and general sale on July 14.