Edinburgh International Book Festival 2024: Everything you need to know

The Edinburgh Futures Institute building at Edinburgh University will play host to the Edinburgh International Book Festival from this year.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival will be embarking on a new era and a period of significant change when it returns this summer.

The event will be staged under new leaderships, at a brand new headquarters, with several new innovations in a programme expected to feature around 600 writers appearing across more than 500 events.

A new director: It is almost a year to the day since Jenny Niven was unveiled as the new director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, to succeed Nick Barley, who led the organising of the event for the final time last August.

The Edinburgh Futures Institute building at Edinburgh University will play host to the Edinburgh International Book Festival from this year.

Ms Niven’s appointment was widely welcomed after a career which had seen her build a reputation as one of Scotland’s leading cultural producers and directors.

She lived and worked abroad for literary festivals and events in Melbourne and Beijing for around a decade before she was appointed head of literature, languages and publishing at national arts agency Creative Scotland.

She was brought in as acting director of the EIBF for the 2017 while Mr Barley took a sabbatical to judge the Man Booker Prize, has since been executive producer of the Edinburgh International Culture Summit and the one-off nationwide arts festival Dandelion, and also co-founded a new poetry festival, Push The Boat Out, in Edinburgh in 2021.

Ms Niven has faced a baptism of her in the run-up to her first festival after mounting criticism of the event’s main sponsor, Baillie Gifford, over its links to the fossil fuel industry. With escalating threats of the event being disrupted by protests and call-offs from writers, the festival announced an end to its 20-year partnership with the Edinburgh-based company ahead of this week’s programme launch.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival is relocating from Edinburgh College of Art to the Edinburgh Futures Institute at the city's former royal infirmary from this summer. Picture: Simone Padovani

A new home: After three years based at Edinburgh College of Art, the book festival will be returning in a brand new home, created in of the city’s most historic landmarks. The A-listed former royal infirmary building on Lauriston Place has just been unveiled as the Edinburgh Futures Institute, a new innovation, education, research hub created by Edinburgh University at the historic complex.

The festival will be staging events in and around the main building, with its outdoor courtyard aimed at recreating the much-loved atmosphere of the event’s long-time home at Charlotte Square Garden.

Best-selling authors from around the world appearing include Nobel Prize winner Joseph E Stiglitz, Booker Prize winner Paul Lynch, One Day author David Nicholls, Australian writers Tony Birch and Melissa Lucashenko, Brazilian writer Itamar Vieira Junior and Turkish-British novelist and essayist Elif Shafaq.

Scottish writers in the line-up include Alexander McCall Smith, Louise Welsh, Grant Morrison, Kathleen Jamie, Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre, Jenni Fagan, Jackie Kay, Allan Little, Jen Stout and Irvine Welsh. Other special guests including filmmaker Mark Cousins, percussionist Evelyn Glennie, and Jim and William Reid, founders of the groundbreaking Scottish indie-rock outfit The Jesus and Mary Chain.

Jenny Niven is in her first year as director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Picture: Ian Georgeson

Biggest ever talks: The biggest ever book festival crowds are expected at the nearby McEwan Hall under a new partnership with Fringe venue operator Underbelly.

The nine-strong line-up of events includes Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson reliving their famous Fringe double act Victor and Barry, Alice Oseman, the writer and illustrator behind the Heartstopper graphic novels and TV series, author, comedian, Pointless host Richard Osman, presenter and author James O'Brien, columnist and author Dolly Alderton, children’s writer Sarah Crossan, and the novelists Philippa Gregory and Matt Haig.

A special McEwan Hall event will see Salman Rushdie appear live from his home in New York two years on from the knife attack that almost claimed his life, to discuss a new memoir which reflects on his survival and recovery.

A landmark literary birthday: The festival will be staging a series of special events to mark the 200th anniversary of one of the most influential Scottish novels of all-time: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. James Hogg’s book, which focuses on a young man of strict Calvinist parentage who falls under the spell of a mysterious stranger and embarks on a career as a serial killer, has influenced the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson, Ian Rankin and Graeme Macrae Burnet.

Author Val McDermid. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

The EIBF strand honouring Hogg’s novel includes an immersive audio and video experience through Edinburgh’s Old Town, created by theatre company Grid Iron and author Louise Welsh, a deep dive by author James Robertson into the many layers of the book, a look back at the acclaimed Scottish theatre production it inspired, and a contemporary reimagining of the novel by folk singer Kirsty Law, musician Esther Swift and writer Kirsty Logan.

Return of the Spiegeltent: After a five-year hiatus, the festival’s famous cabaret venue will make a comeback, with a “Back to Ours” strand of night-time events at the Edinburgh Futures Institute courtyard.

Highlights are expected to include comics Fern Brady, Jack Rooke and Greg MacHugh, singer-songwriter Colin MacIntyre and Rachel Sermanni, an open mic night hosted by Edinburgh’s Push The Boat Out comedy festival, and the poet and Scots language champion Len Pennie.

The Spiegeltent line-up will also feature book festival musical favourites, the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, the cover band formed by Mark Billingham, Val McDermid, Chris Brookmyre, Luca Veste, Doug Johnstone and Stuart Neville, and a live recording of Sara Pascoe and Cariad Lloyd’s Weirdos Book Club.

Voterama: With the festival unfolding weeks after the General Election, there will be much for politicians and commentators like Jess Phillips, Caroline Lucas, Alistair Campbell, Andy Burnham to reflect on. Scotland’s new First Minister John Swinney and Mark Drakeford, who recently stood down as First Minister of Wales, will be reflecting on 25 years of devolution, while a multi-media installation will reflect the views of young people across Scotland on what the country will look like in another 25 years.

Table Talk: Away from the main festival site, world-leading chefs and food writers will be appearing in a series of culinary theme events at Elliott’s Studio, on the other side of the Meadows. Palestinian chef and author Sami Tamimi, first generation farmer and internet sensation Julius Roberts, Rome-based food writer Rachel Roddy, Asma Khan, the owner of Darjeeling Express in London, and award-winning Scottish chef Paul Brunton, whose restaurant Inver is the only one in Scotland to receive a Michelin Green Star.

Public booking for this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival, which runs from 10-25 August, opens on 20 June at 10am.