Bradford Literature Festival (BLF) is an annual festival and year-round cultural engagement programme encompassing the best of literature, music, theatre, discussions, lectures and family events. It is taking place over June and July and is unique in the UK for its diverse and imaginative approach to high-quality arts and cultural programming.
The program includes significant literary and historical milestones, commemorated with new creative works that provide a unique viewpoint. It also features regular themes such as The Brontë’s, Poetry, World Affairs & Politics, Hockney, Global Futures, Comico and Film and Comedy. Some of the upcoming events in July include discussions on “The Making and Breaking of the Modern Middle East,” “Beyond Borders,” “The Future of Migration,” “Ballots across Borders: Election Year Across The World,” “Palestine in Words,” and “Iran at the Crossroads.”
The Festival has played a significant role in the revitalisation of the local culture sector after being named ‘UK City of Culture 2025’. Its’ reach extends across the UK and the world, engaging audiences in the UK and internationally, reaching over 550,000 people from 30 countries. In 2023 alone. It has the largest Education Programme of any UK festival, and stands out for its deep integration within the main festival, giving children and young people unparalleled access to world-renowned authors, poets, writers, and distinguished speakers.
Engaging Children
Since its inception in 2015, over 125,000 students and educators have participated in the Bradford Literature Festival (BLF), with 80% of schools in the Bradford district taking part in the festival at some point. This year, the festival will take place from June 24th to July 5th, 2024, featuring a wide range of themes such as Ancient Egypt, Shakespeare, Gothic Literature, Climate Change, Fairy Tales, and Activism. In 2023, the festival hosted the largest World Book Day event in the UK at Bradford’s Alhambra Theatre, which was attended by 29 primary school students from the Bradford area.
Fatima Bhutto is the author of the novels The Runaways (Viking, 2019), praised as “astute and searing” by Kirkus Reviews, and The Shadow of the Crescent Moon (Penguin Books, 2015), longlisted for Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her most recent nonfiction book is New Kings of the World: Dispatches from Bollywood, Dizi, and K-Pop (Columbia Global Reports, 2019), which argues that the West’s cultural influence is diminishing across the globe. Her first book is Songs of Blood and Sword: A Daughter’s Memoir (Nation Books, 2010) which deals with her father’s murder and the Bhutto family’s history in Pakistani politics. Bhutto’s journalism and essays have appeared in New Statesman, The Daily Beast, The Guardian, The Nation, Literary Hub and elsewhere.
Syima Aslam, Founder, CEO and Artistic Director, said: “Bradford Literature Festival has been a home for complex and nuanced debates tackling some of the most challenging issues we face as a global community. Being able to discuss some of these critical topics in an open forum is central to our democracy and freedom of expression, and we are proud to provide a platform for writers and thinkers to come together and consider how we might make a better future for us all.”
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