Bradford Literature Festival
From the start, Bradford Literature Festival has looked outwards to claim a place for the city on the cultural map.
A mature male writer performs their work standing on stage, book in hand, speaking into a microphone. Behind images are projected onto a screen and a musician live on stage plays saxophone to accompany the performance
Image Credit ©Bradford Literature Festival
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It started off as an idea between two women, me and Irna Qureshi. We wanted to create a literature festival in the heart of Bradford. The important bit about Bradford Literature Festival is ‘Bradford’.
Silhouetted image of a performer live on stage, using a microphone and with amplification and speaker equipment visible to the side
Two young women smile at the camera as part of a crowd waiting for a festival performance to begin
What we needed as a city was something that would put us on the cultural map and that would connect us nationally and internationally. When we were setting the festival up, I certainly didn’t think it would be just for local audiences. If you programme for the communities of Bradford, you are automatically nationally and internationally relevant.
The ambition ‘thinking big’ in the context of Bradford Literature Festival was always that this would be an international destination festival where writers would come from around the world to take part, and that those people would inspire our young people. We are the changing face of contemporary Britain, so it’s really important for Bradford to be recognised as an international city with people from around the world. The conversations we have in this city are nationally and internationally relevant, and they just can’t be had anywhere else in the UK.
I was very conscious when I was growing up that I didn’t have the opportunity to go to a literature festival. My access would have been through school, and I think that’s equally pertinent to a lot of our young people. Being able to bring national and international artists and writers into Bradford, take them into schools and have them inspire our young people was really important. So too was creating a safe space for dialogue and discussion, to address the elephants in the room and to have the difficult conversations.
When we think about the future, it’s important to tell young people they can achieve anything. We’re a young city, we are the drivers of change for the future. Bradford Literature Festival has shown Bradford should always be thinking big and that there is no limit to the ambition for this city.
Syima Aslam
Co-founder & Director