Smith, Duffy and Kwesi Johnson to headline 20th Cambridge Lit Fest

Ali Smith, Carol Ann Duffy and Linton Kwesi Johnson are among the authors headlining the Cambridge Literary Festival, as the five-day event celebrates its 20th anniversary. 

Smith will be presenting the inaugural “A Room of One’s Own” lecture, which offers the foremost women writers of today the chance to share their work and to ask how far we have come since Virginia Woolf’s seminal text was published. 

Festival-goers can also look forward to an evening with former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, as well as a session with Linton Kwesi Johnson, who will be presenting his upcoming prose selection Time Come (Picador). 

Joining the line-up are Maggi O’Farrell, who will introduce her latest novel The Marriage Portrait (Tinder Press), and Curtis Sittenfeld, who will share her novel Romantic Comedy (Doubleday) in a talk with Alex Clark. 

Elsewhere, journalist Gary Younge will join a panel to discuss abolishing the British monarchy and will also host a separate event on his collection Dispatches from the Diaspora (Faber & Faber). Broadcaster Jon Snow brings The State of Us (Bantam), his personal rallying cry for tackling inequality, while Jack Monroe and Kit de Waal will share first-hand experiences, demonstrating that the current cost-of-living crisis is nothing new.

Children and families can expect events hosted by Dame Jaqueline Wilson, Michael Morpurgo, John Agard and Bernardine Evaristo, among others. 

The festival will take place from the 19th to 23rd April, with tickets going on sale today, Thursday, 9th February.