Booker Prize-winning authors head to book festival

Durham Book Festival is returning to the city in October

Booker Prize-winning authors, local writers and international best-sellers are all on the line-up of a city's literary festival.

Durham Book Festival is set to return between 10 and 13 October with a host of famous names including Helen Fielding, Jodi Picoult and Rebecca F. Kuang, the author of Yellowface.

A series of workshops for aspiring writers will also be held across the weekend.

Elizabeth Scott, from Durham County Council, said the annual event underpinned the city's "commitment to writers, readers and audiences".

One of the festival's headline authors is Durham's own Pat Barker, who will be giving a dramatic reading of her new novel, The Voyage Home.

In 1995, Barker won the Booker Prize for her novel The Ghost Road. Her 1983 book Union Street also won the Fawcett Society's prize for fiction.

Rebecca Wilkie, Durham Book Festival director at New Writing North, said the event builds on a "remarkable legacy".

Booker Prize-winner Pat Barker will be at the festival with her new novel The Voyage Home

She added: "2024 features a new commission to tell new narratives of our region, and welcomes a local literary icon, Pat Barker, with the premiere of a commission inspired by her new book."

Sunderland-born Terry Deary, the writer behind the Horrible Histories series, will also be at the festival with his first book for adults, A History of Britain in Ten Enemies.

Durham Book Festival will also be showcasing a new commission called North East Now.

The project tasked 12 northern writers to pen new narratives for the North East to mark devolution.

Three of the writers - Arlen Pettitt, Louise Powell and Richard Benson - will take part in a discussion exploring their themes challenging northern stereotypes.

Other events include poetry readings, documentary screenings and discussions with authors.

Durham Book Festival will be held between 10 and 13 October.