What's on

An Evening with Jim Kay: The Art of Harry Potter

Performance Space

Jim Kay will be talking about his inspiration behind the art for the book and what it was like to illustrate J.K. Rowling’s words. Jim will reveal some of the stories behind his work, the artists that have inspired him and how he goes about creating images of the key characters from the Harry Potter […]

£6

Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, Abigail Parry & Serafina Vick

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               Celebrated Cuban writer, Legna Rodríguez Iglesias launches her bi-lingual poetry collection A little body are many parts. Legna has won a number of prestigious national and international prizes including the Premio Paz for her collection, Miami Century […]

Kerry Hudson: Lowborn

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               “I decided that I’d start to try to acknowledge the strength it had taken for me to get through, and over, my upbringing and become the woman I am today.” Kerry Hudson grew up in a succession […]

Elif Shafak

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               Does anyone care about a sex worker, murdered and abandoned in a bin in Istanbul? Tequila Leila’s friends do. In her superb new novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, Elif Shafak considers the meaning […]

£8

Dashehra Diwali Celebration

Visit Central Library during the afternoon to start the celebrations off with performances, crafts and much more. Free for everyone. No need to book just drop in.

Deborah Levy

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               ‘You are history.’ In her stunning new novel, The Man Who Saw Everything, Deborah Levy considers duality: duality of time, of place, of people. She explores how those dualities might affect our perspective – personally and politically […]

£10

Mona Eltahawy: The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               Leading feminist activist Mona Eltahawy (Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution) is on a mission to arm women and dismantle the patriarchy.  Through her new manifesto, The Seven Necessary Sins for Women […]

£10

Jung Chang

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               ‘One loved money, one loved power and one loved her country’. International bestselling Chinese author, Jung Chang discusses her gripping new biography Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China. The […]

£10

Howard Jacobson

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               Is it possible to find love in your nineties? In Howard Jacobson’s hilarious new novel Live a Little, nonagenarians Beryl Dusinbery and Shimi Carmelli reflect on their lives. Beryl’s problem is that she’s forgetting things – particularly […]

£10

Deborah Moggach

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               In her witty and poignant new novel, The Carer, much loved novelist and screenwriter Deborah Moggach tells the tale of James, his new carer Mandy, and his middle-aged children, Phoebe and Robert. Has the arrival of Mandy […]

£8

creative:connection

Performance Space

Manchester Literature Festival presents...                               In partnership with Create, disabled and non-disabled students from Chatsworth High School & Community College, Grange School, Loreto High School and New Park Academy will come together to take part in an award-winning music project designed to […]

Down and Out in Scotland

Meeting Room 1

Dr Chris Paton explores some of the areas of ancestral hardship, to allow us to truly understand the situations that our forebears had to endure and overcome. An Anglo-Scottish Family History Society event.