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MARLBOROUGH LitFest have announced that royal historian and biographer Robert Hardman, award-winning actress Celia Imrie and acclaimed journalist Zeinab Badawi will join LitFest patron Sir Simon Russell Beale at this year’s 15th festival from September 26 to 29.

LitFest is inviting book-lovers to sign up to Friends of LitFest for 2024 to take advantage of priority booking for this year’s festival. For £30, Friends of LitFest will receive a festival brochure in the post and are invited to festival celebrations and events throughout the year.

Best known as being an awardwinning actor, acclaimed for her film, TV and theatre work, Celia Imrie is also a Sunday Times bestselling author.

Imrie will be appearing at LitFest on Sunday, September 29, to talk about her latest novel, Meet Me At Rainbow Corner, a moving story encompassing war brides and domestic spies, inspired by real events about a group of women working for GI soldiers during the Second World War.

The award-winning broadcaster and journalist Zeinab Badawi will talk about her first book at this year’s LitFest: An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence, which brings a gripping new account of Africa, as told through the voices of Africans themselves. Visiting more than 30 African countries to interview countless historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and local storytellers, Badawi unearths buried histories from across the continent and gives Africa its rightful place in our global story. Badawi will be appearing at LitFest on Sunday, September 29.

Acclaimed royal historian and biographer Robert Hardman’s latest book, Charles III, shows a portrait of a modern monarch, full of insider details behind the challenges as Charles III sets out to make his mark in the 21st century, both in Britain and on the world stage.

Hardman draws on unrivalled access to the Royal Family, friends of the King and Queen, key officials and courtiers, plus unpublished royal papers, to chart the transition from those emotionally charged days following the death of the late Queen all through that make-or-break first year on the throne.

Hardman will be appearing at

LitFest on Saturday, September 28. The festival programme is being put together, offering an exciting mix of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s authors and free family activities over the festival weekend. The full programme will be available in late June with priority booking from July 1 and general ticket sales from 11 July.