Nearly 600 writers from 41 countries will gather in Edinburgh from 15–30 August for the 2026 Edinburgh International Book Festival.
With over 600 events spanning fiction, poetry, politics, science, history, and music it was a wee bit difficult to pick the irresistible top 25 but here they are. There’s plenty that has been missed so go wild if you find yourself in bonnie Scotland this August.
Oyinkan Braithwaite: Cursed Daughters
Oyinkan Braithwaite’s Booker Prize-longlisted debut, My Sister, The Serial Killer, swiftly became a viral publishing sensation. Her hotly anticipated second novel, Cursed Daughters, is a deliciously dark tale about a family curse, reincarnation, female rivalry, and haunting secrets. Join Braithwaite to explore the strength of familial beliefs, taking a risk on love, and the powerful forces which can be unleashed if we try to swerve grief.
Irvine Welsh: Can Nothing Save Us?
Scotland’s grittiest writer returns to launch Can Nothing Save Us? – a ferocious saga of moral freefall, set in a blisteringly hot Las Vegas. Irvine Welsh turns his unflinching gaze on a nation in crisis with this novel following three generations of a wealthy, divided family spiralling toward paranoia, drug-fuelled excess, and explosive reckoning. Join the bard of bad behaviour – 30 years on from the Trainspotting movie – for an unfiltered chat about power, entitlement, and moral decay with Kevin Williamson.
qntm: There Is No Antimemetics Division
An antimeme is an idea you can’t hold onto – a dream, a dirty secret, a complex equation. Now imagine one that’s hunting you. Software engineer turned cult literary sensation qntm joins us with There Is No Antimemetics Division: a mind-bending debut blending cosmic horror with jaw-dropping ideas that asks what happens when reality itself becomes unreliable. One of the Guardian‘s best sci-fi books of 2025, this is unlike anything you’ve read.
Colin Grant: What We Leave We Carry
Colin Grant is renowned for his compelling work documenting the experiences of migrant communities, from the Windrush generation to his own Caribbean family. What We Leave We Carry: Voices of Migration to Britain saw him travelling the UK, taking in profound stories of love, loss, and arrival. Join Grant alongside contributors, including Chief Executive of Scottish Refugee Council, Sabir Zazai, and poet Clementine E Burnley, as they unpack the complexities of belonging and the emotional weight of what’s left behind.
George E Osborn: Video Games, Politics, and the Battle for Global Influence
Video games are played by – and connect – billions of people worldwide, meaning that, beyond entertainment value, they hold incredible potential for influence. In Power Play, leading game industry expert George E Osborn reveals how authoritarians, extremists, and populists have taken full advantage of this, co-opting the industry to develop games that promote their worldviews. Today, he delves into gaming and geopolitics, toxic communities, and how one of our favourite hobbies is being weaponised for political purposes.
Susan Orlean: Joyride
For four decades, legendary New Yorker journalist Susan Orlean has illuminated other people’s lives with wit and forensic curiosity. In Joyride, she revisits a career that reshaped narrative nonfiction – from cults and cab drivers to orchids and origami – while revealing the private heartbreaks and leaps of faith behind the bylines. Today Orlean, also the author of The Orchid Thief (adapted by Charlie Kaufman to become the 2002 film Adaptation) reflects with Hannah McGill on turning her virtuoso reporter’s gaze inward.
M John Harrison: The End of Everything
Master of science fiction M John Harrison returns with his first novel since 2020’s Goldsmiths Prize-winner, The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again. In The End of Everything, Phillip Tennent, who collects washed up artefacts from the Channel, comes across a mysterious shapeshifting object that threatens to destabilise everything he thinks he knows. Today, Harrison joins us to discuss the post-apocalyptic, satirical adventure and how it chronicles the limits of human understanding.
The Front List: Diana Gabaldon
It’s been 35 years since Claire Randall first slipped through time, landing in the arms of Jamie Fraser and at the heart of a love story spanning centuries. Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander novels have since become a bona fide sensation as a smash-hit TV series, with the ‘Outlander effect’ credited with revolutionising Scottish film, TV production, and tourism alike. Join Gabaldon for this special anniversary event to reflect on the inspirations behind the adventures of the Fraser clan and how creating the ‘Sassenach’ changed her life forever.
Mohammed Hanif: Rebel English Academy
Mohammed Hanif – the Booker-longlisted author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes – brings his fierce combination of incendiary wit and political nerve to his thrilling new novel, Rebel English Academy. Fusing slapstick with state-of-the-nation reckoning to hilarious, harrowing effect, Hanif sets love, protest, and state violence on a collision course in late-70s Pakistan. Join him today as he discusses authoritarianism, dissent, and why satire is one of the sharpest tools for telling the truth.
Imani Thompson: Honey
It’s not every day that a debut novel sparks a ferocious 10-way bidding war, but Imani Thompson’sHoney is that dazzling. In a conversation that promises to be as darkly entertaining as the book itself, comedian Sophie Duker joins Thompson to delve into the mind of Honey’s murderous protagonist, Yrsa: the perfect vehicle for a razor-sharp exploration of race, desire, and female rage. Don’t skip this chance to see a bona fide star on the rise.
Ann Pettifor: The Global Casino
Political economist and director for PRIME, Ann Pettifor is famous for predicting the 2008 global financial crash. In this conversation she unpicks how the cost of your weekly shop, monthly bills, car, house, and holiday aren’t just linked, they’re fixed by faceless firms and funds operating in the shadows. Today, she discusses her new book The Global Casino: How Wall Street Gambles with People and the Planet, exposing a corrupt system while offering a truly sustainable alternative.
Peggy Brunache & Carrie Gibson: The Fight to be Free
Historian Carrie Gibson’s The Great Resistance chronicles thousands of acts of defiance in the fight to end slavery across the Americas and the Caribbean. She appears alongside Dr Peggy Brunache, University of Glasgow lecturer in the history of Atlantic slavery and director of the Beniba Centre for Slavery Studies, which works to amplify the voices of history. Join us for this insightful conversation about insurrections, revolutions, and modern questions about social and racial inequality.
Francis Spufford: Nonesuch
To read Francis Spufford’s literary fantasy Nonesuch is to be grabbed by the hand and pulled, screaming with delight, through a version of wartime London where statues talk, timelines bend, and fascism entangles with dark magic. From Booker-longlisted Light Perpetual to his last novel Cahokia Jazz, Spufford is always deft at drawing timely truths out of alternate realities. If you need a fresh perspective on how to keep fighting the good fight, don’t miss him.
Kenneth R Rosen & Odd Arne Westad: Polar Power
Greenland was thrust into the global spotlight by President Donald Trump announcing his intent to acquire the Arctic territory, by hook or by crook. But what sits under the ice that’s so vital to geopolitics? Who better to unravel the puzzle than Cold War historian Odd Arne Westad (The Coming Storm) and American journalist and war correspondent Kenneth R Rosen (Polar War) who join us today to dissect this literal coldest of wars, and explore why the region is so vital to our futures.
The Front List: Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead is one of America’s most skilled and essential storytellers, holding the horrors of history in one hand and big-hearted humanity in the other. After consecutive Pulitzer Prize-winners, The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, he concludes his acclaimed Harlem trilogy with Cool Machine: a portrait of hustle in 1980s New York. Join Whitehead, who is uniquely qualified to parse America’s past and present, for an energising conversation on why we can’t move forward without looking back
Hilary Cottam & Sarah O’Connor: New Ways of Working
We’re continually told that the AI revolution will forever alter our relationship with work, yet need that change be for the worse? Enjoy an invigorating discussion with two authors offering upbeat proposals for the future of work: Orwell Prize-winning Financial Times journalist Sarah O’Connor, whose We Are Not Machines explores humans learning to master destabilising new technology, and innovator and change-maker Hilary Cottam, whose The Work We Need reimagines labour as a force for collective good.
Hollie McNish: Virgin
Virginity is something Hollie McNish has spent years thinking about, from the looming presence we can feel it has in our youth, to whether the Virgin Mary ever got annoyed by her eternal nickname. In Virgin, McNish picks at the six-letter word with her trademark mix of softness, frankness, and humour, to explore its true power. Hear the Ted Hughes Award-winning author of Lobster and Slug dive further into these thoughts and experience her electric stage presence firsthand.
Fergus McIntosh: The Matter of Facts
In an era of post-truth, deepfakes, AI misinformation, and underfunded newsrooms, guardians of truth are more important than ever. The New Yorker’s Head Research Editor Fergus McIntosh leads an exacting, AI-free operation, which doesn’t just check every article, story, poem, cartoon, and piece of cover art for essential truth, but also has to adjudicate every day on what exactly constitutes ‘fact’ in the first place. He joins us with compelling tales from the frontline of preserving objective reality.
John Lanchester: Look What You Made Me Do
Picture settling down to watch the year’s buzziest TV show, only to realise it’s based on the toe-curling details of your own marriage. That’s the premise behind Look What You Made Me Do, John Lanchester’s darkly funny jaunt through the resentments and entitlements of the middle classes – his first novel since Booker-longlisted The Wall. Dan Richards chats to him about our public and private faces and the differences that pull taut between generations.
Benjamin Wood: Seascraper
A tang of sea salt in the air, and a thundering wave of acclaim – buckle up for an encounter with Benjamin Wood’s Nero Book Award-winning and Booker Prize-longlisted Seascraper, a novel that challenges the limits of literary realism. Today, hear Wood chatting with us about his haunting world, where a young, duty-bound shrimp-fisherman is offered a tantalising out. You’ll feel the razorshells crunch underfoot in this conversation that asks: Can we ever, really, break free?
Mariana Mazzucato: The Common Good Economy
What if our economy served the whole planet, and not just the few? An acclaimed Professor of Economics and policy advisor, honoured by both the Pope and King for her work, Mariana Mazzucato’s The Common Good Economy draws on decades of expertise to offer a systemic reinvention – creating a space for us all to flourish. Discover the practical, scalable ways we can collectively fix our broken systems and work towards a purposeful future, together.
The Front List: Elif Shafak
Elif Shafak has published 21 books, including 13 acclaimed novels, and been translated into 58 languages. Following a sold out event discussing There are Rivers in the Sky in 2024, today’s special celebratory event sees Shafak – a powerful advocate for women’s and LGBTQ+ rights and freedom of speech – reflects on her rich career to date, what it means to be a truly global author and citizen, and the impact of putting her personal and political beliefs into tangible action.
Ali Smith: Glyph
For Scotland’s own beloved Ali Smith, words are never neutral – they are alive, exuberant, political. Glyph, a dazzling companion to last year’s Gliff, is a powerful yet playful anti-war novel set in a state turned hostile to curiosity and understanding. She returns to the Festival today to celebrate stories within stories, language as resistance, and the power of words to confront dark times and and help us see other perspectives.
Javier Cercas: The Anatomy of a Moment
February 1981. Shots ring out in Spain’s parliament. Cameras keep rolling. In The Anatomy of a Moment, one of Spain’s most important books of the past 50 years, Javier Cercas revisited the only coup ever captured live on film, transforming the footage into a forensic, gripping narrative. Now, on the 45th anniversary of its inciting event, he reflects on using a novelist’s tools to interrogate a nation’s defining crisis and reveal its very soul.
Patrick Ryan: Buckeye
Patrick Ryan’s astonishing debut novel Buckeye earned him comparisons to J D Salinger and William Faulkner – and highest praise from his close friend Ann Patchett, who chairs this special event. Set in a small Ohio town, the novel traces the far-reaching consequences of a stolen moment of passion as they ripple through generations shaped by war, grief, and longing. This unforgettable conversation will explore intimacy, secrecy, forgiveness, desire, and writing lives entangled by history.
Edinburgh International Book Festival
15–30 August
Edinburgh Futures Institute
