In 1940 Evert Dax and David Sparsholt, two men from very different backgrounds, are thrown together at Oxford University, amid the fear and recklessness of war. In Alan Hollinghurst’s long-awaited new novel, The Sparsholt Affair, we follow the two through the decades as fashions change and their country is transformed around them, ending in a […]

THIS EVENT IS FULLY BOOKED When Harriet Harman entered politics, a woman couldn’t sign for a mortgage and jobs were advertised at a lower ‘woman’s rate’. We’ve come a long way since then, but as Harriet shows in her new book, we have longer still to go. Join us for a searching and intimate conversation with the leading Labour […]

Two gifted, cosmopolitan novelists come together for an evening of boundary-crossing fiction, from Asia to Britain. One of the most widely read writers in her native Turkey, Elif Shafak’s nine acclaimed novels have been translated into 40 languages and include The Architect’s Apprentice, Honour, and The Bastard of Istanbul. She will read and discuss her […]

The Things I Would Tell You is an anthology that features 22 British Muslim Women Writers whose stories and poems transcend time, place and stereotypes to blow away the narrow image of the ‘Muslim woman’. Nikesh Shukla describes it as an ‘exquisite collection full of energy, experimentation, honesty, beauty, fury, heartbreak and laughs. Defiantly multi-cultural.’ […]

Arundhathi Subramaniam attended the first Manchester Literature Festival in 2006 and we are thrilled to welcome her back to the city to share her sensual and soulful poetry exploring the contradictory nature of living in a Third World megalopolis. She has published two books of poetry in Britain with Bloodaxe, Where I Live: New & […]

By sharing our stories, we have the power to transform the world. Amid a global migration crisis, the Refugee Tales project was conceived as a way of giving voice to people who have been held in indefinite immigration detention. Offered as a modern reworking of The Canterbury Tales, the project’s second book tells the stories […]

THIS EVENT IS FULLY BOOKED Is reading for six minutes as good for you as five a day or a brisk walk? We think so, especially if it is about you, about where you live. Come and hear six minute ensembles written and performed for Read Manchester by the brilliant children from Manchester schools (Levenshulme High School for Girls, […]

Join us for an evening with award-winning Mancunian writer and critic Howard Jacobson, in conversation with MLF Patron and host Rachel Cooke about the art of satire and writing as resistance. Written ‘in a fury of disbelief’ following the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, Howard’s latest novel, Pussy, is a fierce and funny take on POTUS, power, […]

THIS EVENT IS NOW FULLY BOOKED Join two captivating artists for an unforgettable evening of performance poetry. The winner of The Poetry Society’s 2017 Ted Hughes Award for New Work, Hollie returns to MLF to read from her wise, sometimes rude and piercingly candid new collection, Plum. In her debut Nobody Told Me, Hollie’s plainspoken writing about the joy and confusion of […]