Wimbledon BookFest

Wimbledon BookFest is London's Leading Literature Festival - a 'not-for-profit' charity promoting arts, culture and education. Its aim is develop the cultural offering for the locality through provision of an annual arts festival and educational projects with schools and young people. It believes that everyone should be encouraged to share their voice and story and that stories can truly change us. It was founded in 2006 by Fiona Razvi and Tony Kane whose ambition was to develop arts and cultural across the community. The public festival normally takes place over 10 days in October. Wimbledon BookFest also runs a year long schools programme 'Word Up working with 150 London schools. It hosts 100 events in its 10 day period and 20,000 attendees now enjoying the festival every year. It is committed to diversity in its programming and audiences, and has a partnership with Lahore Literature Festival to promote South Asian writers and stories. Any money raised is ploughed back into the festival and its education work with local schools. Over 3,000 books are given every year to children from a lower socio-economic demographic to encourage reading and literacy. Central to BookFest is the desire to bring literature to the heart of the community and the community to the heart of literature.