Hay Festival Podcast

The Pakistani activist and writer Malala Yousafzai won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her work in favour of the right of children, particularly girls, to education. Aged 17 when she received the award, she became the youngest ever person to receive a Nobel in any category. A BBC blogger since 2009, she has been a persistent critic of the Taliban in her country, which resulted in an attempt on her life when she was on a bus near her home in Pakistan in 2012. She studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Lady Margaret Hall College, Oxford, and has an honorary doctorate from Kings College University, Halifax, Canada.

We open this episode with an excerpt from an event at Winter Weekend 2018 from Malala’s father, Ziauddin Yousafzai. For more than 20 years, Ziauddin Yousafzai has been fighting for equality – first for Malala, his daughter – and then for all girls throughout the world living in patriarchal societies. Taught as a young boy in Pakistan to believe that he was inherently better than his sisters, Ziauddin rebelled against inequality at a young age. And when he had a daughter himself he vowed that Malala would have an education, something usually only given to boys, and he founded a school that Malala could attend.

Malala Yousafzai in conversation with Lydia Cacho
Ziauddin Yousafzai talks to Rosie Boycott

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Peter, a brilliant scientist, is told he will lose everything he loves – his husband, family, friends. He has Motor Neurone Disease, a condition universally considered to be terminal. He is told it will destroy his nerve cells and that within two years, it will take his life, too. But face-to-face with death, he decides there is another way and using science and technology, he navigates a new path that will enable him not just to survive, but to thrive. This is true story about the first person to combine his very humanity with artificial intelligence and robotics to become a full Cyborg. His discovery means that his terminal diagnosis is negotiable, something that will rewrite the future. By embracing love, life and hope rather than fear, tragedy and despair he will become Peter 2.0.

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Peter 2.0: The Making of a Cyborg

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A gripping and triumphant tale of human compassion, All the Young Men is the true story of a young, single mother who finds herself driven to the forefront of the AIDS crisis and who risks everything to give victims back their humanity. In 1986, 26-year-old Ruth Corker Burks visited a friend in hospital when she noticed that the door to one of the patient’s rooms is painted red. The nurses were reluctant to enter, drawing straws to decide who will tend to the sick person inside. Out of impulse, Ruth herself entered the quarantined space and begins to care for the young man who cries for his mother in the last moments of his life. And in doing so, Ruth’s own life changes forever. Ruth goes from being an ordinary young mother in Hot Springs, Arkansas to an accidental activist, the only person willing to help the young men afflicted by the growing AIDS crisis in her deeply conservative community.

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Think of any problem that we face and you may be surprised to learn that there is already a solution out there. We just need to know where to look – and have the courage to think big. Everywhere, people are devising ingenious ways to tackle everything from inequality and the climate crisis to the challenges of housing, technology and demographic change. Based on his podcast Reasons to Be Cheerful, Ed Miliband investigates transformative schemes and why they work. He demonstrates that a different world is possible and we can get there by implementing the best, most ambitious solutions on a large scale. The opportunity for change is immense. It’s time to Go Big. Natalie Haynes is an author and broadcaster.

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Reasons to be Cheerful with Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd

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The walker discusses her mesmerising and inspirational memoir: just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of thirty-two years, is terminally ill, their home is taken away and they lose their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. Carrying only the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

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Eric Ngalle Charles is a poet, author and playwright who has claimed asylum in Wales. His uplifting story describes how literature and creative writing helped him to overcome his hasty departure from Cameroon when he was 17, how he survived being a victim of human trafficking and living on the streets in Russia before eventually coming to live in Wales. He talks to author Jenny Valentine.

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Eric Ngalle Charles performs Death on the Third Floor at Hay Festival 2019

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Leïla Slimani is the first Moroccan woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, which she won for the shocking thriller and global best-seller, Lullaby. She discusses her work and her novel Adèle with lawyer Philippe Sands.

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Leïla Slimani in conversation with Sophie Hughes, Hay Festival Arequipa 2019

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Carole Cadwalladr won the Orwell Prize and the Reporters Without Borders Award among many others for her investigative journalism in The Observer into the subversion of the democratic process and the impact of big data analytics and interventions on the EU Referendum and the American Presidential Election of 2016. She discusses her work with Oliver Bullough.

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Carole Cadwalladr discusses the political landscape at Gwlad in 2019

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Actor, writer and director Ethan Hawke talks to author David Mitchell at Hay Festival 2021 about his first novel in nearly 20 years: A Bright Ray of Darkness. A young man makes his Broadway debut as his marriage implodes – a blistering story about love, fame and the healing power of art.

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David Mitchell talks to John Mitchinson at Hay Festival Digital 2020

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Award-winning violinist, broadcaster, author and journalist Clemency Burton-Hill discusses the joys of classical music with Peter Florence at Hay Festival 2018. Clemency’s book Year of Wonder is a personal selection of 365 pieces of music for classical music geeks and novices alike.

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Hay Festival 2021 Opening Gala: A Night of Hope
Clemency’s Hay Festival playlist

Full-length Festival events can be watched over at hayfestival.org/hayplayer. Contact us at [email protected] or on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook @hayfestival.

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