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Hay Festival

Web: https://www.hayfestival.com/

The Hay Festival, founded in 1988, offers a fortnight of live and online conversations, debates and performances, and an inspiring, free Programme for Schools.

Where:


Hay-on-Wye, Powys, Wales
UK

When:

    The festival takes place from
    May 21 to May 31, 2026

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2026-01-05: Hay Festival launches The Pleasure List for National Year of Reading with Stephen Fry
Recommendations from supporting writers, influencers and public figures across the year’s Hay Festival programmes will be shared weekly online. In ...
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2026-01-05: At least three writers withdraw from Hay festival in protest at Machado invite
Machado’s team said she would not comment on the writers’ protest. The festival, which was founded in Wales and later expanded to other countries, ...
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2026-01-05: Stain on Hay: Should María Corina Machado Refuse the Literary Festival?
For a literary festival, silence can be more revealing than speech. The decision by three writers to withdraw from the 2026 Hay Festival in ...
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2026-01-05: Hay Festival launches The Pleasure List for National Year of Reading with Stephen Fry
Recommendations from supporting writers, influencers and public figures across the year’s Hay Festival programmes will be shared weekly online. In a ...
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2025-08-02: The Welsh event named one of the best book festivals in the world - Time Out
National Geographic has named Hay Festival, which Bill Clinton once called ’the Woodstock of the mind’, one of the world’s best literature ...
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2025-07-16: Damian Le Bas on writing between worlds - Monocle
Agustina Bazterrica at Hay Festival 2025 ... Georgina Godwin speaks to Argentine author Agustina Bazterrica about her shift from opera to writing, ...
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2025-06-03: Salman Rushdie says AI won’t threaten authors until it can make people laugh
Author tells Hay festival AI has no sense of humour but when it writes a funny book ’we’re screwed’
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2025-05-21: Preview: Hay Festival 2025 - The Indiependent
Described as the ’town of books,’ Hay-on-Wye is renowned for its plethora of new and second-hand independent bookshops, perfectly complemented by its ...
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2025-03-25: Hay Festival 2025 and Monocle’s Hanami Market
Historian and writer Alex von Tunzelmann joins Georgina Godwin to discuss why the latest averted US government shutdown could signal a sea change for ...
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2025-03-13: Hay Festival 2025: ’Carnival of ideas’ returns with new events programme
Annual literary event has become a prominent occasion in British culture and boasts a star-studded lineup with over 600 events.
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2024-12-06: Hay Festival 2025 unveils first wave of speakers, including Michael Morpurgo and Richard Dawkins
Annual Hay Literary Festival announces next year’s guests ahead of first ticket sales.
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2024-11-29: Chloe Dalton’s debut novel named Hay Festival Book of the Year 2024
The Hay Festival Book of the Year for 2024 has been named as Chloe Dalton’s debut novel, Raising Hare (Canongate).
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2024-10-02: Dallas’ Literary Event, Hay Festival and Forum, Is Back
When the annual Hay Festival Forum Dallas arrived in 2018, it was one of many signals that the city’s literary scene is indeed trending upward in ...
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2024-08-28: National Book Foundation Announces Fall 2024 Season of NBF Presents
Events will be presented with regional book festival partners at the Brooklyn Book Festival, Hay Festival Forum Dallas, Literary Arts’ Portland Book ...
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2024-08-13: Hay Festival Global to ’cross borders’ with renewed Lviv BookForum partnership
"We invite readers across the globe to stand with us in solidarity in showing Ukrainian authors that their voices are needed and valued more than ever ...
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2024-07-03: Book festivals previously sponsored by Baillie Gifford seek donations
Monday’s statement comes weeks after Baillie Gifford partnerships with the nine festivals ended – including Hay festival, Edinburgh international book ...
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2024-06-18: The terrible consequences of the Hay Festival grandstanding
Baillie Gifford has now entirely withdrawn from funding literary festivals; and on Saturday it was reported that Barclays Bank (targeted by Bands ...
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2024-05-27: Hay Festival suspends sponsor deal with Baillie Gifford
... Book Festival, and The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. FFB has said that "until the firm agrees to divest, we call on all literary ...
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2024-05-20: Hay Festival 2024: Lineup, tickets, weather and more
The countdown is on to Hay Festival, one of the world’s top literary events which takes place every year in the mid-Wales town of Hay-on-Wye.
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2024-05-06: The new voices and hidden gems of Hay Festival 2024
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2024-04-30: Hay Festival 2024: our guide to this year’s highlights
The biggest, most enticing event on the annual literary calendar, it promises a host of big-name authors and thinkers having the kind of unique ...
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2024-02-15: Hay Festival unveils new brand identity
Spanning the worlds of literature, art, science, politics, music and comedy, the `open book` identity is designed to broaden the organisation’s reach ...
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2024-01-03: Hay Festival expands year-round events with online book club and ’after hours’ city pop-ups
Free monthly events tied to the relaunched Hay Festival Book Club will begin later this month. Celebrating timeless titles that offer audiences a ...
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2023-09-02: Hay Forum Dallas will expand to a three-day festival in 2024
This year’s edition of the literary event is Sept. 9-10 and features 11 writers.
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2023-08-15: In conversation: Hay Forum literary fest captures the human experience
Hay Forum literary fest kicks off September 9 at 5 pm at The Wild Detectives. ... book reveals and dance parties in the two-day festival.
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2023-06-05: Stormzy at Hay literary festival: ’Black people are not monolithic’
The Heavy is the Head singer and rapper was appearing at the famous literary festival at Hay-on-Wye in Wales to talk about his publishing imprint, ...
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2023-05-31: Hay Festival - Every booklover’s dream destination
The small town of Hay-on-Wye in Wales, UK, is buzzing as it hosts the 36th edition of Hay Festival, one of the world’s top literary events.
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2023-05-24: Allen, Buchaillard and Smith-Barton to take part in Hay’s Writers at Work programme
Literature Wales artistic director Leusa Llewelyn said: `It’s a pleasure to be working with Hay Festival again on this important writer development ...
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2023-03-30: Hay Festival: Sir Salman Rushdie and Heartstopper creator Alice Oseman to be honoured ...
Sir Salman Rushdie and Alice Oseman are among those being recognised for their work at one of the world’s largest literary festivals.
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2022-08-10: Hay Festival Segovia: an unmissable literary event for after the summer
The seventeenth edition of Hay Festival Segovia will be held from September 15 to 18, 2022, in this beautiful medieval Spanish city.
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2022-04-20: Hillary Clinton to speak at 2022 Hay festival
The former US senator will be in conversation with lawyer Helena Kennedy on 2 June as part of the literary festival’s Women & Power series.
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2022-04-12: Hay Festival 2022: A Program of More than 500 Speakers
"It’s been 35 years since writers and readers started sharing their stories together in our festival tents and we have never needed these stories ...
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2022-04-07: Hay Festival: what is the literary event and who is confirmed to be attending
The literature and art festival will return to Hay-on-Wye in Wales for the first time since the coronavirus outbreak this year.
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2022-04-06: Hay festival returns with its first in-person event for three years
After two years online, the Hay festival has announced the full programme for its first in-person spring literary festival since 2019.
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2021-11-30: Levy and Evaristo to headline the 2022 Hay Festival
... Barnes and Deborah Levy are among the headliners for the 2022 Hay Festival. ... George Monbiot discussing the inspirations behind their books.
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