Wimbledon BookFest Information

Wimbledon BookFest is a 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 in early October in a 'pop up' festival site on Wimbledon Common in its Baillie Gifford Big Tent, Robert Graves & William Morris tents. The Festival also runs a year long Education programme with schools - Word Up. It hosts 100 events in its 10 day period and has grown from 1,000 visitors in its first year to over 15,000 with 10,000 school children from 100+ South London schools now enjoying the festival every year. Any money raised is ploughed back into the festival and its education work with local schools. Over 3,000 books are given to children from a lower socio-economic demographic every year to encourage reading. Central to BookFest is the desire to bring literature to the heart of the community and the community to the heart of literature.