English PEN’s annual programme at London Book Fair returns, with a day-long takeover of the Salon at the Fair.
On Wednesday 11 March, “English PEN at the Salon” will feature five events exploring pressing free expression issues for the literary sector. This year’s conversations will examine the relationship between free expression and EDI investment; supporting bookshops and libraries facing removal requests targeting books by minoritised authors; the role of independent publishing in fostering a free and diverse literary landscape; what it means to entertain and be entertained in an increasingly illiberal world; and what books can do in the face of rising authoritarianism, conflict, and division.
Full programme:
10am – Whose Freedom? Power, Equity of Expression, and Rejecting Attacks on EDI
Speakers: Selina Brown, So Mayer, Nikesh Shukla, Josie Dobrin (Chair)
In the opening event of our London Book Fair programme, a panel of publishers, writers, programmers, and voices from across the sector discuss how shifts in the industry’s support for structurally marginalised voices are impacting the state of free expression. It will ask: are structural barriers to free engagement with writing, publishing and reading re-entrenching? Has commitment to promoting Black voices and writing from the wider Global Majority waned – and how can we redouble it? How is a rollback on equity, diversity and inclusion affecting different publishing territories? What is publishing’s role, responsibility, and capacity in addressing rising division, inequity and marginalisation?
11.30am – Freedom to Read in the National Year of Reading: Facing Removal Requests and Supporting Targeted Communities
Speakers: Louis Coiffait-Gunn, Juno Dawson, Alison Hicks (Chair)
In the National Year of Reading, this conversation explores how access to books, literary initiatives, and the diversity of the literary landscape relate to freedom of expression. We ask a panel of voices from publishing, writing, libraries and research contexts to consider: how can efforts to increase reading also support the libraries and bookshops at the frontline of resisting pressure to remove books from shelves? Are patterns from the US – including the targeting of books featuring LGBTQIA+ and Global Majority people and characters – being reflected in the UK? How can we identify these patterns? What does support look like? What action can we jointly take?
1pm – What We Lose if We Lose Small Presses: Independent Publishing, Risk and Survival
Speakers: Will Eaves, Rachel Quin, Jack Thompson, Katie Fraser (Chair)
Amid growing pressures on independent publishing, this conversation examines the free expression implications of losing small presses. Publishers, writers and marketing experts come together to ask: how do the economic, political and funding pressures on independent publishers risk limiting the range of voices being read? What might we lose, and how do we prevent it? Are we market-chasing rather than market-making – and what does this mean for the freedoms to write and read being meaningful, universal, and progressive? What do the consolidation of the sector and shifts in online publicity cultures mean for the market? And how can we balance keeping books affordable and keeping careers viable?
2.30pm – Books Against Authoritarianism: Publishing Through a Human Rights Lens
Speakers: Kit Fan, Mary Glenn, Arabella Pike, Daniel Gorman (Chair)
Amid rising authoritarianism and division, global attacks on free expression, increasing international conflict, and the erosion of human rights, we bring together leading authors, publishers, and human rights experts to ask: what can books do? They will explore how the erosion of democratic norms and a shrinking public sphere are effecting publishing – and how publishing can respond, asking: where do we draw lines in what we publish, to and from where we sell and buy rights, and from where we receive funding – or should we draw lines at all? How can publishing professionals advocate for a human rights-based approach? How can we address the far-right weaponisation of free expression rhetoric? And what is it that we are trying to do as a sector – make bestsellers, or something more?
4pm – Joy Against Despair: Publishing, Hope, and Entertainment Amid Rising Authoritarianism
Speakers: Sami Abu Wardeh, Bolu Babalola, Joelle Owusu, Zoey Dixon (Chair)
The closing event in our London Book Fair programme brings together writers, publishers, and voices from across the sector to discuss how we can be hopeful – as writers, as readers, and as an industry – in a socially, politically and economically challenging moment. It will ask: what role do joy and fun have in 2026? Do we need to break down separations of commercial and literary, popular and serious, entertaining and activist? And what can we do with books’ ability to foster solidarity and empathy?