The Radical Book Fair 2022: Save the Date!

We’re approaching that time of year again! It may seem unreal (here in Edinburgh we just stepped out of festival and Book Fringe mode) but November is less than two months away and with that comes the Radical Book Fair.

This year’s fair is taking place on Nov 10th - 13th at the Assembly Roxy in Edinburgh. Our theme for 2022 is, simply and necessarily: Our Fight.

Under this headline we hope to bring together conversations on togetherness, solidarity and resistance in a time of endlessly intersecting crises, inspiring visions of strengthened communities across divides. In what ways must we come together at this moment, under new and old threats? What harnessed power might be possible when we do?

Like previous years, the fair will be made up of book stalls, activist stalls, events, workshops and more, ranging from topics such as mutual aid and policing to grief and making art as resistance. There will also be plenty of joy-giving performances and word-smithery.

This year's graphics are by Candice 'Goblin' Purwin, pulled from the brilliant comic zine she made for us.

The full program will be announced in early October so, for now, do save the date and sign up to our newsletter (scroll all the way down on the homepage) to get informed when all the events are available for booking.

Announcing this as a new, worse than worst, government assumes power, only makes us more decisive - we must use every space we have to inspire, to empower, to reach out and to plot next steps. We hope that this year’s Radical Book Fair may be all these things and more; that it may allow you a place to find people with whom to take those steps.

The Radical Book Fair has been a staple of Edinburgh's political and literary landscape for over 20 years, originally run by Word Power Books, we've hosted writers as varied as Wole Soyinka, Michael Rosen, Stella Dadzie, Paula Akpan, Ann Pettifor, Priyamvada Gopaland Maya Goodfellow.

2021 speakers included Aja Barber, Leah Cowan, Akwugo Emejulu, Mara Menzies, Eve Livingston, Jen Deerinwater, Lisa Fannen, 12 Rules for WHAT, Jo Becker, Harry Josephine Giles, and many more covering everything from sustainability to borders, abolition to radical imagination, pleasure politics and more. You can still watch most of these events on the website!