SATURDAY 1 JUNE

hayfestival.org 2.30pm

4pm

[339] 2.30pm STARLIGHT STAGE £8

[341] 4pm BAILLIE GIFFORD STAGE £10

Ma Jian and Sjón talk to Daniel Hahn

Ian McEwan talks to Marcus du Sautoy

Fictions: The Big Picture

Fictions: Machines Like Me

A conversation with two international superstar novelists who’ve created new works of extraordinary scale and scope. From exile, Ma Jian shoots an arrow at President Xi Jinping’s China Dream propaganda, creating a biting satire of totalitarianism that reveals what happens to a nation when it is blinded by materialism and governed by violence and lies. Sjón’s Codex 1962 is a breathtakingly ambitious novel. As the late, great Eileen Battersby wrote of him, the Icelandic writer “has mastered the fabulist’s technique of merging history with high-speed comedy and surreal profundity. With a man made of clay and a bewildered angel struggling to get rid of a symbolic trumpet, there are shades of the Bible as well as Milton. Sjón, an heir of Mikhail Bulgakov and Laurence Sterne, eases literary references into the text as mere suggestions.”

McEwan’s new novel Machines Like Me takes place in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda’s assistance, he co-designs Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever – a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma. Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel poses the fundamental question: what makes us human? Du Sautoy’s new book is The Creativity Code: How AI is learning to write, paint and think. Part of the Serious Readers series [342] 4pm OXFAM MOOT £9

[402] 2.30pm SCRIBBLERS HUT £18

Kathryn Mannix talks to Stephanie Boland

Writing Radio Drama

Workshop A two-hour practical writing workshop led by awardwinning playwright Sebastian Baczkiewicz. We’ll look at what you love about radio plays and find out how to unlock that initial idea that’s been itching to break free. We’ll look at how to write scenes and to keep the all-important action of your story moving. You will also find out how to get your work read in the first place, as well as insights into how radio drama series such as Homefront came to be developed and produced. There will be plenty of time for any questions you may be burning to ask! Sebastian has written for radio, TV and theatre. Among his many radio credits are seven seasons of his acclaimed series Pilgrim as well as adaptations of Les Misérables and The Count of Monte Cristo. He was also part of the core writing team for Radio 4’s landmark World War One drama Homefront. 18+ [HD78] 2.30pm LLWYFAN CYMRU – WALES STAGE £10

Jacqueline Wilson

With the End in Mind: How to Live and Die Well Mannix has spent her medical career working with people who have incurable, advanced illnesses. Told through a series of beautifully crafted stories taken from nearly four decades of clinical practice, she answers the most intimate questions about the process of dying with touching honesty and humanity. She makes a compelling case for the therapeutic power of approaching death not with trepidation but with openness, clarity and understanding. You will meet Holly, who danced her last day away; Eric, the retired head teacher who, even with motor neurone disease, gets things done; loving, tender-hearted Nelly and Joe, each living a lonely lie to save their beloved from distress; and Sylvie, 19, dying of leukaemia, sewing a cushion for her mum to hug by the fire after she has died. Boland is head of Digital at Prospect magazine. [343] 4pm LLWYFAN CYMRU – WALES STAGE £9

François-Xavier Fauvelle talks to Georgina Godwin

Dancing the Charleston Join bestselling Dame Jacqueline Wilson, who introduces her gloriously atmospheric new book and discusses how she created some of her best-loved characters including Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather. Please note that there will be no book signing after the talk, but printed bookplates with Jacqueline’s signature on will be available from the Bookshop. 9+

The Golden Rhinoceros: Histories of the African Middle Ages From the birth of Islam in the 7th century to the voyages of European exploration in the 15th, Africa was at the centre of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. It was an African golden age in which places like Mali, Ghana, Nubia and Zimbabwe became the crossroads of civilisations, and where African royals, thinkers and artists played celebrated roles in the globalised world of the Middle Ages.

- 109 -