FESTIVAL PRESENTERS
(In alphabetical order)
TIM BEASLEY-MURRAY
Associate Professor of European Thought with UCL's BASc Programme. He is also
Director of the PhD Programme in Creative Critical Writing, and Academic Director of
the new Creative Humanities BA. Tim's research embraces literature, philosophy and
political theory and deals with European culture broadly, especially French, German,
Russian, and Czech and Slovak.
WILL FORRESTER
Translation and International Manager at English PEN. He co-edited All Walls
Collapse: Stories of Separation (2022) and led the editorial team for My Pen Is the
Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women (2022). He worked in the visual arts
in Malaysia and as an independent expert for the EU Commission’s Creative Europe
programme. He is a Clore Emerging Leader 2022, a Bookseller Rising Star 2023,
and a judge for the 2024 US National Translation Award.
ROSIE GOLDSMITH
Artistic Director European Writers’ Festival. Founder and Director of the European
Literature Network and Editor-in-Chief of The Riveter magazine. An award-winning
broadcaster, she spent 20 years with the BBC in arts and foreign affairs. Today an
arts journalist and presenter, Rosie was chair of the judges for the EBRD Literature
Prize 2018-2020 and host of the British Library’s European Literature Night 2009-
2017.
LUKE HARDING
Award-winning journalist and writer, reporting from Ukraine since 2007. In 2011, as
the Guardian's bureau chief, the Kremlin deported him from Russia, the first such
case since the Cold War. Luke is the author of 8 acclaimed books, including the #1
New York Times bestseller Collusion: How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win; A Very
Expensive Poison; Shadow State; and Mafia State. His latest book Invasion was
shortlisted for the Orwell Prize, and awarded Ukraine's Journalism Book of the Year
2023.
THARIK HUSSAIN
Author, Travel Writer, Journalist, Academic. His debut book, Minarets in the
Mountains, won the 2022 British Guild of Travel Writers' Adele Evans Award. Tharik
has written Lonely Planet guides to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Thailand, London and
Britain. He developed Britain’s first Muslim heritage trails, broadcasts and writes for
the BBC and other outlets across the world and is a fellow at the Centre for Religion
and Heritage at the University of Groningen and the Royal Geographical Society in
London.
TOBY LICHTIG
Toby Lichtig is the Fiction and Politics Editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He
writes for a range of publications and has appeared as a guest critic on various
television and radio programmes. He also freelances as a documentary producer.
Toby was chair of judges of the 2018 JQ/Wingate Prize and of the EBRD Literature
Prize 2020-23.
REBECCA JONES
BBC Arts correspondent for more than two decades, as well as Chief News
Presenter for BBC TV. She presented Newswatch, Meet the Author and Talking
Books. She has judged arts awards, including Museum of the Year and the Costa
Book Awards. She chairs regularly at festivals and has been board member and
trustee of various arts organisations.
BEE ROWLATT
Bee Rowlatt is a writer and producer of cultural events at the British Library. In
Search of Mary won the Society of Authors’ K Blundell Trust award and was the
Independent’s biography of the year. Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad was
dramatised by the BBC. Bee clocked over two decades at BBC World Service.
UTA STAIGER
Associate Professor of European Studies, Director of the European Institute and
Global Strategic Academic Advisor (Europe) at UCL. Uta’s research and teaching
covers modern European thought, culture, and politics, with recent publications on
the cultural sources of Brexit negotiations, the architecture of parliamentary politics,
and how to think about tragedy and the law. She is co-editor of the UCL Press cross-
disciplinary FRINGE series.