NOVELIST and screenwriter, William Boyd, whose books have been translated into more than 30 languages, will open the Chipping Campden Literature Festival next month.

Boyd, who has recently been in Paris selling his latest novel Ordinary Thunderstorms, will be at Chipping Campden School for the opening ceremony on Tuesday, May 4 from 7pm.

For the opening, Boyd will read from and talk about his latest work, and tickets cost £8, while students go free.

On Friday, May 7, also at the school from 7pm, fellow novelist Amanda Craig will read from her latest novel, Hearts and Minds, and is in conversation with Open University broadcaster, Cicely Havely.

By contrast at 8.30pm, Adam Foulds reads from The Quickening Maze. Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize (2009), this novel exquisitely depicts the paradise of the nineteenth century poet, John Clare.

BBC radio 3 presenter, Graham Fawcett, reads from John Clare’s The Shepherd’s Calendar and is in conversation with Adam Foulds a bit later when the audience can discover how and why these two novelists write the way they do.

Tickets cost £8 and £10 respectively, while students go free.

Other names at the festival includes children’s favourite, Chloe of the Midnight Storytellers, while also on May 5, torture writers from some of the world’s most unstable regions, and supported by novelist and journalist, Michael Arditti, take part in Write to Life: Torture Survivors.

Reading their own memoirs, poems and stories, they givie a moving but entertaining view of lives most of us never see.

For full details including times and prices for all the nights of the festival visit campdenlitfest.co.uk or call Vicky on 01386 841222.