Paula Hawkins and Bernardine Evaristo headline 2024 Manchester Literature Festival

Manchester Literature Festival returns this autumn featuring the likes of Bernardine Evaristo, Paula Hawkins and R F Kuang.

Festival co-directors Cathy Bolton and Sarah-Jane Roberts said the programme, which runs from 4th to 20th October 2024, should "inspire, move and challenge" and "bring new writers and more established names to the city, celebrating literature in all its forms".

The line-up includes Evaristo, Hawkins and Kuang, along with writers such as Neneh Cherry, David Peace, Matt Haig, Alan Hollinghurst, Andrew O’Hagan, Carol Ann Duffy, George Monbiot, Caroline Lucas and Harriet Walter. 

Events takes place across a variety of venues in Manchester, including Central Library, Martin Harris Centre, John Rylands Library and Manchester Poetry Library.

Co-directors said: "The festival gets off to a bold start when singer-songwriter and artist Neneh Cherry (‘Buffalo Stance’, ‘Raw Like Sushi’) talks about her beautiful and deeply personal memoir A Thousand Threads with Booker Prize winner Evaristo.

"Rebecca F Kuang will be in town to discuss her number one global sensation Yellowface, a provocative satire set in the cut-throat world of publishing, seen through the eyes of failed writer June, the character you’ll love to hate."

Co-directors added: "Award-winning novelist Susanna Clarke reveals how writing and reading have shaped her life, including the writers who have inspired her to become such a magical storyteller including Ursula Le Guin, Jorge Luis Borges, Charles Dickens and Kate Bush."

Manchester Literature Festival and Comma Press launch The Book of Manchester in a very special event for 2024. Edited by David Sue and poet Lemn Sissay, the collection explores the transformation of the city.

Kaye Mitchell, director at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, said: "Every year the Manchester Literature Festival offers up a rich feast of readings, culture and conversation. In 2024, this feels especially vital: to provide a space for joy, beauty and connection, but also for urgent discussions about who we are or might be; the earth we inhabit; our fraught histories and possible futures—and even what we eat.

"This showcasing of contemporary creativity is at the heart of the Centre for New Writing’s mission, and we are delighted to be the Festival’s higher education partner once again."

For more information, visit manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk.