‘We’re going to collaborate left, right and centre’

The Book Festival’s relocation after three years at Edinburgh College of Art and nearly 40 in Charlotte Square Gardens coincides with Ms Niven’s first festival as director.

However she led the programming of the 2017 festival for months while her predecessor, Nick Barley, was on sabbatical to chair the judging panel of the Man Booker International Prize, and forged a new collaboration with the Royal Lyceum Theatre.

Ms Niven was previously executive producer of the Edinburgh International

Cultural Summit, head of literature at Creative Scotland, the co-founder of the first book festival in Beijing, in China, and programme manager at the Melbourne Writers Festival, in Australia.

She led the programming of events marking the centenary of the birth of Edinburgh author Muriel Spark, was executive producer of Dandelion, a six-month-long harvest-themed festival staged across Scotland, and was co-founder of Push The Boat Out, a new festival of poetry, performance and spoken word in Edinburgh.

Discussing her vision for the future of Edinburgh’s annual literary celebration, Ms Niven said: “I’ve worked in festivals throughout my whole working career and I’ve always wanted to do this job. It’s a huge opportunity to do all sorts of new things. I'm excited about what the book festivals of the future are going to look like.

“We’re going to be collaborating left, right and centre. It’s a way I’ve always liked to work, it’s really satisfying and it always throws up interesting new things. There are also so many other great organisations doing interesting stuff.”