Thank you for joining us at the Lit Fest!
Tickets for the Lit Fest are no longer available.
The London Library is pleased to announce the return of its literary festival, The London Library Lit Fest taking place from Thursday 27 April – Sunday 30 April 2023.
Open to everyone, The London Library Lit Fest will bring together leading figures from the literary world for an eclectic, inspiring and thought-provoking long weekend of conversation, performance, art and music exploring themes of collections, collecting and collectives. Events include creative workshops, fascinating panel discussions, and the first ever performance of Sylvia Pankhurst’s formidable long-lost play Between Two Fires.
Events will be held in the Library’s famous Reading Room across the evenings of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and all day on Sunday. Events will be livestreamed, opening the Library to all.
The Programme
Thursday
Explore portraits of women writers in an exhibition by South African born, UK-based artist, Susanne du Toit. The exhibition launch, in which this complete series of works is shown for the first time and throughout the festival, is followed by a very special salon with Susanne and some of her illustrious sitters including Juliet Jacques, Dreda Say Mitchell and Sacha Llewellyn and Lara Feigel.
Friday
Don’t miss an electrifying evening of poetry, performance, dance and music to honour TS Eliot's epic poem, The Waste Land and the city it inhabits. Featuring poets Ben Okri, Jay Bernard, Will Harris, Sophie Herxheimer, Daljit Nagra, Richard Scott and Hannah Sullivan, singer songwriter Polly Paulusma and dancer Charlotte Jarvis. An exhibition of sculptures by Jacqueline Nicholls, which grapple with The Waste Land, will be hidden among the Library’s stacks and can also be enjoyed throughout the festival.
Saturday
Discover Between Two Fires, the powerful long-lost play that Sylvia Pankhurst wrote in solitary confinement in HMP Holloway with a contraband pencil. Performed for the first time in a rehearsed reading directed by Roxana Silbert, it will be followed by a panel discussion with Pankhurst’s biographer Rachel Holmes; her granddaughter activist Helen Pankhurst; playwright Sonali Bhattacharyya and London Library archivist Nathalie Belkin. The cast are yet to be announced.
Two inspiring writing workshops will run in partnership with Arvon, the national creative writing charity, across Saturday and Sunday. Artist and poet Sophie Herxheimer will lead a workshop on found and collage poetry using the Library’s collection and novelist Marcel Theroux will lead a workshop on writing politics into fiction. Workshops are in-person only.
Sunday
We kick off Sunday with a showcase of amazing talent from some former participants on our prestigious Emerging Writers Programme. Later in the day we’ll take a fascinating look at anthologies, encyclopaedias and indexes with Simon Garfield, Dennis Duncan, Clare Bucknell and Rishi Dastidar, dissecting the cultural, social and political history of information collation in the Age of Google. Meanwhile, flipping the patriarchy on its head in their most recent books, activist and writer, Yassmin Abdel-Magied brings together Carole Hailey and Ayisha Malik to explore gender, silence and revolution.
And rounding off this year’s Lit Fest, five speakers delve into the Library's idiosyncratic Science and Miscellaneous section to celebrate the Library’s weird and wild heart in a lively event in partnership with 5x15, including poet and playwright Inua Ellams on 'Music', bestselling author Kate Summerscale on 'Fear', award-winning psychotherapist Maxine Mei-Fung Chung on 'Sex' (and desire), film critic Danny Leigh on 'Typewriters' and legendary journalist and biographer Philip Norman on 'Press'.
Please note that the lockers will not be available throughout the festival. Ticketholders are advised to not bring large bags.
London Library Director Philip Marshall commented, “The Library aims to inspire, support and promote reading and writing. We are excited to once again open the Library to all through the London Library Lit Fest 2023. We look forward to welcoming audiences, in-person and online, for an enjoyable and insightful weekend of conversation, performance, art and music from a host of talented and creative people.”
The London Library LitFest is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and by Fondation Jan Michalski.
Read more: The London Library Announces Literary Festival, London Library Lit Fest 2023
We are delighted to have partnered once again with The Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Trust Young Writer of the Year Award, which has just announced its 2022 winner, Tom Benn. Tom will benefit from two years’ London Library membership, with the shortlist receiving a year’s membership. We are proud to celebrate authors of the highest quality at the beginning of their careers and provide a critical support system to the very best talent at work right now.
Novelist and screenwriter, Benn has been named the winner of the award for Oxblood, a novel that judge Oyinkan Braithwaite called a ‘bountiful, fearless work of literary art’, daringly exploring masculine violence and fractured female agency through the domestic lives of three generations of working-class women in 1980s Manchester.
Oxblood is a landmark novel shifting the perspective on male violence towards the female experience of grief, love and resilience. Set in a council house haunted by memories of dead family members, Benn’s unflinching storytelling unearths the forgotten working class voices left in the footnotes of Manchester’s industrial history.
For over 30 years, the UK’s most influential prize for young writers has been a definitive indicator of rising literary talent in Britain and Ireland and Tom Benn joins an illustrious list of previous winners, including last year’s winner Cal Flyn, as well as Zadie Smith, Simon Armitage, Max Porter, Sally Rooney and Robert Mcfarlane.
Read more: Tom Benn Wins The Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Trust Young Writer of the Year Award
We are currently carrying out improvement works to the Library that may cause some disruption to members visiting the building. We will continue to update members as the works progress via our newsletter, website and social media channels.
Members can still borrow and return books as usual and enjoy the beautiful spaces in our reading rooms and the stacks. If you need assistance finding an alternative study space, please speak to staff in the Issue Hall.
We are committed to improving the service and surroundings for our members and endeavour to keep disruption to a minimum while we do this. Should you wish to get in touch with any of our team about these works, please email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Thank you in advance for your co-operation.
Update – 20 June
On Thursday 22 and Friday 23 June, a new keyless locker system will be installed in the Issue Hall.
Update – 16 May
Members visiting the Library may have noticed new security gates at the entrances. These have been fitted to provide extra protection to the Library’s extensive collection of books for the benefit of our members and future generations of readers, writers and thinkers.
Further improvement works in the Issue Hall will follow in the summer:
- Self-service facilities will be installed as an option for members to loan and return books
- Our lockers will become keyless, requiring members to access lockers using their membership card rather than collecting a key from Reception
- Issue Hall carpets will see a refresh, with new carpets laid on the stairs leading up to and inside the Reading Room at a later date in the summer.
Signage will inform members which areas are likely to be temporarily affected so alternative spaces can be sought within the Library to read or write. Noisy works will take place before opening hours to minimise disruption, however, it is possible that some noise may be heard at times.
During works to the Issue Hall, there may be limited access to lockers and coat cupboards. Members are advised not to bring large bags to the Library at this time.
Below is the current schedule of works. We will update members as the works progress via our website and social media channels:
20 March - 1 April – the Issue Hall will be partially closed and one of the two Issue Hall entrances will close for two days while we install power and reconfigure data. Staff will be on hand to help with navigation.
27 March - 5 May – a new energy-efficient LED lighting system will be installed in the Book Stacks, which may cause disruption and some desk closures.
At a later date - the stairs leading to the Reading Room will be closed while we install new carpets.
We are committed to improving the service and surroundings for our members and endeavour to keep disruption to a minimum while we do this. Should you wish to get in touch with any of our team about these works, please email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Thank you in advance for your co-operation.
Based on ongoing feedback, the Library is pleased to confirm that The Study will remain a laptop-free space for members who wish to engage in silent study without the potential distraction of electronic devices.
The Study takes over from the main Reading Room, which prior to the Pandemic was the Library’s only laptop-free space. In 2020, originally to allow for social distancing, the Library began to permit laptops in the Reading Room. Since that time, usage of the Reading Room has increased by 63%.
In 2022, The Study was designated a laptop-free space on a 6-month trial basis. This followed the most recent member survey, in which 34% of responding members stated that a laptop-free space in the Library is ‘somewhat important’ or ‘very important’. The trial began in August 2022 and throughout that period, the Library received feedback from members showing appreciation for the provision of a laptop-free space and asking for it to continue.
Members are welcome to use laptops in all other reading rooms and workspaces. The Library is a silent study space throughout and devices must be set to silent mode and used with consideration to other members.
We are committed to offering a mixed range of welcoming study spaces that are conducive to reading and writing and accommodate all member needs. We hope that use of The Study will continue to grow.
