past speakers
We are very proud of the roster of international authors who have participated in the Festival over its first six years.They include several major literary prize-winners, such as the Nobel, Pulitzer, Booker, National Book Award and Women’s Prize for Fiction, and innumerable best-selling writers. They cover interests from fiction, to biography, to popular science, to history, to gardening, to war photography, to drama, to art, to politics and more.
Find the full list of past Festival speakers below
2022
Marcus Amaker, Edoardo Ballerini, Antony Beevor, Tim Bouverie, Marie Brenner, Geraldine Brooks, Tina Brown, Alyson Cambridge, Frans de Waal, Hernan Diaz, Renee Dudley, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Lyndall Gordon, Elisabeth Griffith, Geoffrey Harpham, Nick Hornby, Margo Jefferson, Patrick Radden Keefe, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Ian McEwan, Tiya Miles, Andrew Motion, Sandra Newman, Julie Orringer, Imani Perry, Betsy Prioleau, Jyoti Thottam, John Taylor Williams, Elizabeth Williamson
2021
André Aciman, Stuart Bennett, Orville Vernon Burton, Bernard Cornwell, Armand Derfner, Edmund de Waal, Lauren Groff, Yaa Gyasi, Rebecca Hall, Mena Mark Hanna, Nathan Harris, Tristram Hunt, Walter Isaacson, James Ivory, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Yiyun Li, Patricia Lockwood, Alison MacLeod, Louis Menand, Tiya Miles, Scott Peeples, Philippe Sands, George Saunders, Anne Sebba, Maggie Shipstead, Patricia Sullivan, Lisa Taddeo, Colm Tóibín, Carl Zimmer
2020
André Aciman, Paul Adamson, Anne Applebaum, Brit Bennett, Sarah Churchwell, Sara Collins, Bernard Cornwell, Kirk Curnutt, Kim Darroch, Monty Don, Emma Donoghue, Richard Ford, Bill Goldstein, Jonathan Green, Geoffrey Harpham, Maura Hogan, Mark Honigsbaum, Martha Rivers Ingram, Mary Kaldor, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Ken Lam, Regina Marler, John Mullan, Sandra Newman, Maggie O’Farrell, Jenny Offill, Gail Rebuck, Nigel Redden, Susan Rice, Simon Schama, Charlton Singleton, Elif Shafak, Robert Skidelsky, Joseph Stiglitz, Sue Stuart-Smith, Jia Tolentino, Claire Tomalin, Sheena Wagstaff, Richard Wolffe, Carl Zimmer
2019
Jill Abramson, Stuart Bennett, Anne Blessing, David Blight, Jung Chang, Matthew D’Ancona, Deborah Eisenberg, Deborah Gage, Frye Gaillard, Belinda Gergel, Richard Gergel, Bill Goldstein, Nigel Hamilton, Geoffrey Harpham, Philip K. Howard, Melissa Hughes, Lei Jin, Nathaniel Kahn, Karen Kukil, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Angela Mack, Rebecca Makkai, Regina Marler, Virginia Nicholson, William Nicholson, Joyce Carol Oates, James M. Scott, Lionel Shriver, Bart van Es, Carl Zimmer
2018
Elliot Ackerman, Lynsey Addario, John Avlon, Tina Brown, Bernard Cornwell, Christopher Dickey, Michael Farthing, Richard Gergel, Belinda Gergel, Bill Goldstein, Stephen Greenblatt, David Hare, Geoffrey Harpham, Alexandra Harris, William Hubbard, Margo Jefferson, Deborah Lipstadt, Regina Marler, Madeline Miller, Sarah Milroy, Virginia Nicholson, Marva Smalls, Charles Spencer, Ramie Targoff, Anita Zucker
2017
Charles Anson, Edward Ball, Bernard Cornwell, Dominic Dromgoole, Julian Fellowes, Belinda Gergel, Jonathan Green, Carter Hudgins, Nan Morrison, Virginia Nicholson, William Nicholson, Juliet Nicolson, Ben Okri, Barbara Bellows Rockefeller, Miranda Sawyer, Frances Spalding, Margaret Bradham Thornton, Jeannette Winterson