Hurray for Hay Festival
31st May 2012
For 25 years Hay Festival has brought together writers from around the world to debate and share stories at its festival in the staggering beauty of the Welsh Borders. Hay celebrates great writing from poets and scientists, lyricists and comedians, novelists and environmentalists, and the power of great ideas to transform our way of thinking. Hay now runs 13 festivals across five continents at which the re-imaginings of international writers gathered together, cross cultural and genre boundaries, and foster the exchange of understanding, mutual respect and ideas.
The Telegraph Hay Festival 2012 will host over 750 events, from literature to philosophy, music to science, history to humour and everything in between. Legendary conductor Simon Rattle will be in conversation with the BBC's Tom Service; Tim Minchin talks to The Telegraph's Sarah Crompton; Tom Watson and Martin Hickman discuss hacking with Helena Kennedy; and Maryam d'Abo and Hugh Hudson talk to Paul Broks about their film Rupture.
In celebration of the festival's silver jubilee, festival director Peter Florence will launch Hay 25, a playful questionnaire for the festival audience set to reveal the way we live now. Twenty five questions - ranging from ‘what makes you laugh?' to ‘what piece of writing has most changed your heart and mind?' - have been set by a panel including Stephen Fry, Margaret Atwood, Jung Chang, Eric Hobsbawm, Laura Restrepo and Jeanette Winterson.
