Bradford Literature Festival organisers confirm 2027 dates after record-breaking year

More than 201,000 visitors attended the event this summer which was held across 10 days, with 762 events staged through its main festival programme, education work and family events.

And organisers have announced next year’s event is set to take place between Friday, June 11, and SUndat, June 20, 2017.

Founder and Artistic Director Syima Aslam said the festival was created to be more than a sequence of talks and performances, describing its role as a space for communities and stories to be brought “into the centre of cultural life”.

She said: “Culture is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

“Bradford Literature Festival began with a simple idea: that a literature festival in this city should be more than a series of events.

“It should be a place of encounter. A place of ambition. A place where people who are too often spoken about could speak for themselves.

“A place where stories that had lived for generations in families, in communities, in music, in poetry, in memory, and in silence, could be brought into the centre of cultural life.

“We are very purposefully a literature festival, even though our programme is across arts, music, theatre, film and visual art.

“We are a literature festival because literature is language, imagination, memory, argument, beauty and truth.

“Literature is how we understand ourselves, and how we begin to understand each other.”

Organisers said the themes of community collaboration, family, hope, peace and storytelling ran through headline events featuring Fatima Bhutto, David Larbi, Prue Leith and Misan Harriman.

Lemn Sissay closed the festival with an event reflecting stories gathered through his ‘Tell Me Something About Family’ project, which also featured as an exhibition during the festival.

Political discussions also featured prominently, with former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking alongside Professor Paul Rogers.

Mr Corbyn highlighted the festival's importance, noting that “solidarity should be cultural as well as political and economic.”

Green Party MP Hannah Spencer also delivered a well-received talk on her experiences in politics, criticising MPs holding multiple jobs: “Some ministers have 10 other jobs listed. How can they be serving their constituencies?”

Bradford's own crime author A.A. Dhand launched his new novel, The Kingpin, at the festival, sharing insights into his writing process and drawing inspiration from his previous career as a chemist during the Covid-19 pandemic.

For updates on the 2027 programme, please visit: www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk