Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith, and Ian McEwan are among several literary stars auctioning off the chance for readers to name characters in their next novels to raise money for survivors of torture. This auction is part of Freedom from Torture’s 10th anniversary literary festival, which will take place at the London Library on 11 November.
Event Highlights
The festival brings together leading authors and survivors for a celebration of storytelling, featuring:
- A poetry competition
- Live readings
- Original artwork by Quentin Blake
- A rare book of Mary Wollstonecraft stories illustrated by William Blake
- A book club visit from author Louise Doughty
More than 75 authors, poets, artists, and illustrators are supporting the festival. A bookmark raffle will showcase over 30 original designs by authors, each paired with a signed copy of the book that inspired it. Contributors include David Nicholls, Mark Haddon, Felicity Cloake, Nathan Filer, Nikesh Shukla, Sathnam Sanghera, and Jeremy Vine.
Poetry Competition
The festival also features a poetry competition centered on the experiences of torture survivors, judged by Alan Hollinghurst, a Booker prize-winning novelist, and poet Rachael Allen. This event comes amid growing concern over asylum policies in Britain and across Europe. The charity warns that changes to legal protections could put torture survivors at risk of being returned to the countries they fled.
Insights from Freedom from Torture
Samuel Morton, the special events and philanthropy manager at Freedom from Torture, stated that the festival is inspired by their creative writing group, Write to Life, which is the UK’s longest-running refugee writers group and believed to be the only one in the world for survivors of torture. He explained:
