Emirates Airline LitFest confirms 12 authors for 2016 edition

Literary enthusiasts will be particularly excited to learn that Helen MacDonald, winner of the 2014 Costa Book Award for her bestselling book H is for Hawk, will be here.

Dubai – The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature has released the names of 12 authors who will be attending the 2016 Festival ahead of the announcement of the final line up in October. Over the coming months, more names will follow as the excitement builds to a crescendo.

‘At our inaugural Festival in 2009, we had a total of 65 authors participating,’ said Isobel Abulhoul, CEO and Trustee of the Emirates Literature Foundation and Festival Director of the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature. ‘But today, with our eighth festival still another eight months away, we already have more than 65 authors confirmed.’

Literary enthusiasts will be particularly excited to learn that Helen MacDonald, winner of the 2014 Costa Book Award for her bestselling book H is for Hawk, will be here. Acclaimed British personalities, including UK’s Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, philosopher AC Grayling, and Professor Tim Spector, author of Identically Different and the best-selling The Diet Myth, will also be flying in.

Festival favourite crime writer Ian Rankin will be returning with another Detective Rebus mystery, while Anthony Horowitz, a prolific author who has turned his hand to write the latest James Bond novel, Trigger Mortis, is also very popular with younger festival-goers who are fans of his ‘Alex Rider’ series.

Best-selling Emirati counsellor and coach Hala Kazim, historical fiction writer Conn Iggulden, and eminent investigative journalist Dan Rather will all be returning to packed audiences next year.

2016 will also feature Suad Amiry, author of Sharon and my Mother-in-Law and Nothing to Lose But Your Life: An 18-Hour Journey with Murad, and Anchee Min, celebrated author of best-selling memoirs and historical novels about China.

At the heart of the festival has always been its children’s programme. The festival can confirm that Petr Horacek, paper engineer and illustrator of numerous children's books including The Mouse Who Ate the Moon and the recent A Surprise for Tiny Mouse, will be one of the many children’s authors coming to Dubai in 2016.

• UAE