Off The Shelf have finally announced their long-awaited full lineup for the 2025 literary festival, taking place in Sheffield this October. With acts like Lucy Worsley already announced, the festival, one of the largest in the North of its kind, was already generating a buzz ahead of the exciting names released today.
International Booker Prize-winning author and translators, Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi, will be joining on a live video link from India to talk to Rachel Genn, an author also published by the same Sheffield-based publishing company as the International Booker winners: And Other Stories. Mushtaq is a lawyer and activist from South India, and Heart Lamp, her book of short stories, illustrates the lives of women in the area she is familiar with.
Mizuki Tsujimura, author of Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon, the Japanese bestseller, will be visiting in person and interviewed by Lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of Sheffield, Dr Nozomi Uematsu. Tsujimura’s book follows the concept of a place where you can meet with people who have changed your life but since passed away, allowing for closure and renewal. Also joining us in person will be Terry Deary, famously the author of the beloved Horrible Histories series, here with a more adult-focused show named Revolting that focuses on protests and revolts throughout history, celebrating the bravery, nerve and imagination of working people across history and world, and BAFTA-nominated Lemn Sissay OBE reading from his poetry collection Let the Light Pour In. Other famous names include Kate Mosse, here to present her first young adult book, Feminist History for Every Day of the Year, and Stuart Maconie of BBC 6 Music fame, discussing the people behind the scenes who made The Beatles so famous.
Sheffield based writer and author of Studio Electrophonique: The Sheffield Space Age, from The Human League to Pulp, Jamie Taylor, will be attending in conversation with BBC 6 Music broadcaster Deb Grant. This will also be accompanied by a screening in Showroom Cinema of A Film About Studio Electrophonique. Off The Shelf celebrates authors both worldwide and local, providing opportunities for audiences to learn new insights and perspectives on novels they may love, or newly discover.
Off The Shelf will be taking place from October 10th-November 10th in venues across Sheffield. Tickets for the events described in this article can be found at https://offtheshelf.org.uk/events/
