There’s always plenty to look forward to at Oxford Literary Festival and this year it has a strong female focus. Jaine Blackman reports

Women writers will be providing a lot of inspiration at this year’s Oxford Literary Festival.

“The festival has always attracted a strong line-up of women speakers who are leaders in their fields, and this year is particularly strong,” says festival director Sally Dunsmore.

“It’s a line-up that I know will inspire all who come along. In the field of literature we are especially delighted to welcome the current Booker winner Eleanor Catton. She is the youngest winner of the award and was chosen ahead of several more established male counterparts who were also in the shortlist.”

Catton, 28, will be talking to former stand-up comic, writer and 2013 Booker judge Natalie Haynes about her award-winning novel, The Luminaries. Set in the goldfields of New Zealand in the second half of the 19th century, it follows Walter Moody as he comes across a series of unsolved crimes. We have plenty of new young women writers at the festival such as Taiye Selasi, who is predicted for big things, Kamila Shamsie, who has already won plenty of awards, and the highly acclaimed US novelist, Jesmyn Ward,” says Dunsmore.

Taiye Selasi, one of Granta’s 20 Best Young British Writers 2013, talks about her debut novel, Ghana Must Go; Kamila Shamsie talks about her new novel, A God in Every Stone, a story of friendship, injustice, love and betrayal and Jesmyn Ward, who lost five men in her life to drugs, accidents, suicide and the bad luck that follows people living in poverty in the deep south of America, talks to fellow US novelist Dr Jewell Parker Rhodes about her book Men We Reaped.

“This year, we also welcome women who are leading figures in their field,” says Dunsmore.

“There can be few better known wine critics and writers than Jancis Robinson. Lucy Worsley is carving out a real name for herself as a presenter of television history programmes, and the likes of Claudia Roden and Madhur Jaffrey have achieved iconic status in the world of food, not to mention the world of film and stage acting in Madhur’s case.”

Other highlights of the festival include Children’s Laureate Malorie Blackman on children’s writing and human rights and Born Free actress and wildlife campaigner Virginia McKenna talking to children’s writer Lauren St John about the inspiration of wildlife.

“There are more than 250 events across many different fields this year,” says Dunsmore. “We are a big festival, but we are a friendly festival, and we encourage our festival-goers to get involved, talk to our authors, ask them questions and join in the debates.”

The festival runs from March 22 to 30. Details and booking at oxfordliteraryfestival.org. Bookings in person (or by phone on 0870 343 1001) can be made Monday to Saturday 10.30am to 6pm and Sunday 11am to 5pm at Blackwells in Broad Street.

Other Highlights

* A panel of authors who have contributed to a new anthology Daughters of Time, will discuss the cause of women’s rights through the ages and the great women who played a leading role in it. It includes the stories of Queen Boudicca, Aethelfled, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Julian of Norwich, Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth Stuart, Aphra Behn, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Anning, Mary Seacole, Emily Davison, Amy Johnson and the Greenham Common women.
* Journalist and broadcaster Kirsty Wark, pictured right, talks about her debut novel The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle.
* Wasfi Kani is joined by a singer from Grange Park Opera as she tells the inside “glamour and grubiness” story of the opera world.
* Biographer and critic Dame Hermione Lee, president of Wolfson College, Oxford, uncovers the writing, life and secret self of writer Penelope Fitzgerald, who was not published until she was 60.
* There will be a few blokes going along too – including Robert Harris, Philip Pullman, Orhan Pamuk, Jeremy Paxman, Ben Okri, Ian McEwan and Alexander McCall Smith.