Clock Tower Stage
Great Hall
10:00-11:00
Global Intelligence 2024: where do we go from here?
Niall Ferguson in conversation with former MI6 chief Alex Younger
10:00-11:00
Toff Lit: the endless fascination with tales of the elite
Chair: Catherine Ostler
Panel: Plum Sykes, Harry Beaufort and Nicky Haslam
11:30-12:30
Jerusalem the Golden: conquerors, saints, prophets, crusaders & sultans
Historians extraordinaire Tom Holland and Simon Sebag Montefiore discuss holy power in a secular world
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11:30-12:30
The AI roulette: terror or triumph?
Chair: Yana Peel
Panel: Alexandra Mousavizadeh, Madhumita Murgia and Albert Read
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Churchill Suite
12:30-14:30
Salon (students only)
Crisis on Campus: can freedom of speech survive in our turbulent times?
Chair: Olivette Otele
Panel: Joanne Cash, Merve Emre, Larry Kramer, James Marriott and Luke Pepera
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Clock Tower Stage
Great Hall
13:00-13:45
The Boy from Baghdad
Nadhim Zahawi tells his extraordinary story to Michael Gove
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14:00-15:00
Precipice 1914: a story of love and war
Robert Harris discusses his new novel, about the wartime dilemmas of Herbert Asquith, with Albert Read
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14:00-15:00
One Day, hour by hour: how to adapt a beloved bestseller from book to screen
Natalie Livingstone talks to the award-winning screenwriter of One Day, Nicole Taylor
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15:30-16:30
Life after midnight
The champion of free speech and magical realism, Salman Rushdie, in conversation with his friend and fellow novelist Ian McEwan
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17:00-18:00
Caesars and Cleopatras: sex and power in the ancient world
Chair: Peter Stothard
Panel: Daisy Dunn, Tom Holland and Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
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17:00-18:00
‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown’: inside the Plantagenet playbook
Chair: Olivette Otele
Panel: Helen Castor and Dan Jones
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Clock Tower Stage
Great Hall
10:00-11:00
The Golden Road: India & Russia from ancient times to the Mughals & Romanovs
Celebrated historians William Dalrymple and Simon Sebag Montefiore discuss the rise and fall of two of the greatest dynasties with fellow historian Catherine Ostler
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10:00-11:00
The power of the Crown: how the monarchy has evolved from the Middle Ages to the present day
Chair: Andrew Roberts
Panel: Helen Castor, Robert Hardman and Anne Somerset
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11:30-12:30
Hollywood meets Hard News
Screen stars Rachel Weisz and Emily Maitlis in conversation
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11:30-12:30
The World of William Boyd
The acclaimed writer discusses his Cold War spy novel with Hannah MacInnes
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14:00-15:00
New stories: the women shaping fiction in 2024
Chair: Merve Emre
Panel: Elif Shafak, Rosalind Brown, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Alice Winn and Kate Weinberg
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14:00-15:00
Is there a path to peace in the Middle East?
Chair: Camilla Cavendish
Panel: Alex Younger, David McCloskey, Ronen Bergman and Jasmine El-Gamal
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Churchill Suite
14:00-15:00
Blenheim Palace Confidential
Henrietta Spencer-Churchill opens the door of her family’s stately home to Andrew Roberts
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Clock Tower Stage
Great Hall
15:30-16:30
The Empire of Radden Keefe: from OxyContin to London gangsters
Journalism’s prize investigator Patrick Radden Keefe talks to Alice Thomson
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15:30-16:30
Spies, lies and Mossad ties
Pulitzer Prize-winning Middle East expert Ronen Bergman talks to Natalie Livingstone about his career on the front line of journalism
17:00-18:00
The Writing Game
Oscar-winning director Neil Jordan and Booker prize-winning novelist John Banville discuss their stellar careers with Rebecca Fletcher
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17:00–18:00
The Emperor’s Library: the role of books in Napoleon’s life, loves and conquests
Louis Sarkozy talks to Andrew Roberts
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A tribute to Mike Lynch and his daughter, Hannah
The Cliveden Literary Festival would like to pay tribute to the brilliant Mike Lynch (1965 -2024). We were deeply honoured that he was due to speak this year, on Artificial Intelligence and the future of tech, science and the humanities, before his tragic death on 19th August. Mike was Britain’s most successful tech entrepreneur and one of the country’s most radical thinkers. He created several multi-billion dollar companies including Autonomy, Blinkx and Darktrace, each of which commercialised the breakthrough mathematics of the time to query, monitor or protect data. He was a fellow of the Royal Society in the field of AI and sat on the boards of the BBC, the British Library and NESTA. Most recently known for prevailing in a decade-long legal dispute, his views on AI, society and policy were enormously influential in decision-making for leaders in industry and government. On a personal note, he was the warmest, funniest and kindest of men.
We would also like to honour the memory of Mike’s beloved daughter, Hannah, (2006 – 2024) who attended Cliveden with her parents and was due to start at Trinity College, Oxford in October to study English. Hannah had inherited her parents’ curiosity, intellectual ambition and immense capacity for love and friendship. She loved ideas and literature, from Donne to Nabokov. Words cannot express our heartbreak at the loss of this dazzling young woman.
We recall their appreciation of the Festival, their warmth and their friendship, and our hearts are with Angela Lynch and her elder daughter, Esme.
Catherine Ostler, Natalie Livingstone, Andrew Roberts and Simon Sebag Montefiore
Please note, on occasion, the programme and speaker list may be subject to change.