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Home | Hot Books | Tasters | Biography | Welsh Writers | Blasphemy and Belief | Festival History | Find out more
The Hay festival was started in 1988 by Peter Florence, then a young actor. Florence's mother's family came from the Black Mountains in Wales, and Hay, with its antiquarian and second-hand bookshops, seemed the ideal place for an offbeat literary festival. Florence, who remains the festival director, funded the first event with the winnings of a poker game.
The next year he persuaded American playwright Arthur Miller to be the star guest (a bemused Miller reportedly asked if Hay-on-Wye was some kind of sandwich). Since then, the festival has grown on its own unique lines – high-minded and casual, ambitious and intimate. Don DeLillo, Norman Mailer, Toni Morrison and Bill Clinton have all crossed the Atlantic for it. Bands and comics perform alongside the writers – Rory Bremner, Bill Bailey and Jools Holland are on the bill this year.
In its 17-year history, Hay has acquired its share of legends. There was the all-night poker session Bill Clinton led in 2001. And the time Nobel Prize-winning novelist William Golding went sleepwalking in a nightgown and cap. And the very public proposition Harold Pinter received from a woman in his audience.
There are traditions about the weather too. For years, huge rainstorms greeted the opening of the festival, giving people an excuse to pile straight out of the events and into a pub. The last few years have been treacherously sunny but, undaunted, punters open bottles of wine in the fields or retire to pub gardens.
The festival's range has grown steadily. There are art exhibitions, a circus, writing masterclasses and debates. Children's events run for the entire 10 days. And this year, for the first time, there is a film programme, with the help of sponsorship from FilmFour.
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