Teamwork Arts, producer of the Jaipur Literature Festival, JLF International editions, and other literary and cultural experiences across the world, have announced the 2026 dates for the annual JLF London at the British Library, which will return from the 5 – 7 of June, with headliners such as Lyse Doucet, Nikita Gill, and Tash Aw, and will be held, as in previous years, in partnership with the British Library.
Sanjoy K Roy, managing director Teamwork Arts, said “JLF London at the British Library 2026 is a celebration of ideas, stories, and connections that transcend borders. From the heart of the British Library, we bring together voices that inspire, challenge, and delight, creating a space where literature meets dialogue, and cultures meet conversation. This festival is about sparking curiosity, fostering understanding, and sharing the power of stories with audiences across the world.”
Evoking the spirit of the Jaipur Literature Festival, held annually in the city of Jaipur, JLF London at the British Library blends South Asia’s multilingual literary heritage with local flavor and context, in a celebration of books and ideas that champions diverse global perspectives and highlights our shared stories.
Transforming the British Library into a cross-cultural space throughout the weekend, the festival will welcome a host of speakers for talks, debates, conversations, and performances, spanning – poetry, theatre, cinema, art, food, history, and AI, climate action and geopolitics.
The festival will feature key figures across politics, journalism, performance, and literature, including the BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet; creator of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Alexander McCall Smith; Booker-longlisted novelist Tash Aw; and historian and critic Marina Warner; alongside voices such as Fredrik Logevall, Ali Eslami, and Richard Horton, bringing further depth through perspectives that cover the breadth of diplomacy, history, digital art, and global health.
The lineup also includes political commentator Bruno Maçães; renowned historians Anita Anand, Sarah Churchwell, and William Dalrymple; poet, playwright, writer and illustrator Nikita Gill; Gurnaik Johal, author of Saraswati, one of the most discussed debuts of 2025; and Tahmima Anam, critically acclaimed author of Uprising and The Startup Wife; alongside other South Asian and diaspora voices such as Abir Mukherjee, Jeet Thayil, Ruchir Joshi, and Sheena Kalayil — whose novel The Others was longlisted for the prestigious 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction — as well as Gopalkrishna Gandhi, author, former diplomat and administrator, and a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi.
Jon Fawcett, head of Events at the British Library, said, ‘The British Library is delighted to welcome JLF back to its London home, the national library of the UK. Our living collection of over 170 million items gets bigger every day, and our trusted experts care for this collection and open it up for everyone to spark new discoveries. Curators from the Library will be joining this year’s magnificent array of speakers, so do come along and hear from them at a range of exciting events.”
The 2026 program reinforces the festival’s commitment to representing varied literary perspectives along with diaspora chronicles and contemporary narratives. In addition, special events marking the 50th anniversary of Agatha Christie’s death will feature conversations between Christie’s great-grandson James Prichard – the chairman and CEO of Agatha Christie Limited – alongside Sunday Times bestselling crime writers Lucy Foley, Lucy Rowland and Shrabani Basu. The British Library will also be celebrating Christie’s legacy with a landmark exhibition, Agatha Christie: A World of Mystery in October this year.
JLF International, which carries the festival’s grand arc across continents, is well-entrenched as a literary series in the UK, USA, and continental Europe. 2026 will also mark the first edition of the festival that will take place across the island of Ireland. The foundation for this landmark event was laid in 2019 when JLF Belfast drew both a large attendee base and widespread appreciation. The inaugural edition of JLF island of Ireland, supported by the Government of Ireland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, will take place from 22 – 31 May 2026 and will encompass the entire island for the first time, visiting Belfast, Armagh, Dundalk, and Dublin.
