Turning pages, opening horizons
The Chania Book Festival (CBF), organised by the Municipality of Chania in co-organisation with the Region of Crete, returns for its fifth consecutive year in Chania from Monday 22 to Sunday 28 June 2026 under the central theme Worlds in Conflict. The festival will take place at the Venetian Harbour of the city, between the Center of Mediterranean Architecture (Grand Arsenal) and the Mikis Theodorakis Theatre.
At a time when certainties are being shaken and social, political and cultural polarities are intensifying, the 5th CBF – timely and interventionist in nature – with the participation of prominent Greek and international authors, publishers, translators, academics and thinkers, will focus on the contrasts that define the contemporary world: peace and war, open borders and fortified walls, democracy and the rise of the far right, economic development and social inequalities, emerging individual rights and the revival of conservative identities, spirituality and fanaticism, human creativity and artificial intelligence, among others.
Through literature and essay writing, the 5th CBF seeks to highlight conflict not only as rupture, but also as a field of encounter, dialogue, understanding and coexistence between different worlds.
In collaboration with the British Embassy Athens and Chania Book Festival, we are pleased to present the following British writers:
Alan Hollinghurst
Tuesday – 23 June 2026, 21.00–22.00
Alan Hollinghurst was born in 1954 in Stroud, Gloucestershire, in south-west England. He studied English literature at Magdalen College, Oxford and worked for the Times Literary Supplement, the renowned literary review from 1982 to 1995. In 1993, he was included in Granta’s list of the Best Young British Novelists.
He has published seven novels, among which The Line of Beauty stands out, having won the Booker Prize in 2004. His novels The Swimming-Pool Library (1988) and The Stranger's Child (2011) are also available in Greek translation from Kastaniotis Editions. Our Evenings was published in 2024. In addition, Hollinghurst has received the Somerset Maugham Award, the E. M. Forster Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.
Julianne Pachico
Wednesday – 24 June 2026, 20.00–21.00
Julianne Pachico was born in 1985 in Cambridge, England. She grew up in Cali, Colombia, where her parents worked in international development as agricultural social scientists.
In 2004, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she completed her BA at Reed College in Comparative Literature. In 2012, she returned to England in order to complete her MA in Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, where she was a recipient of UEA’s Creative Writing International Scholarship. She also holds a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing from UEA.
She had a short story on the long list for the Sunday Times Prize and is also the only writer to have two stories in the 2015 anthology of the Best British Short Stories. Her short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published by The New Yorker, Granta, The White Review and Lighthouse, among others.
Richard Gwyn
Thursday – 25 June 2026, 17.00–19.00
Richard Gwyn is a Welsh writer, poet and translator. Following studies in social anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE) and several years in London, he spent a decade travelling around the Mediterranean, chronicled in his memoir The Vagabond’s Breakfast (Wales Book of the Year for non-fiction, 2012).
His first novel, The Colour of a Dog Running Away (2005), set in Barcelona, was translated into many languages. His other novels include Deep Hanging Out and The Blue Tent. His poetry collections include Walking on Bones, Sad Giraffe Café and most recently, Stowaway: A Levantine Adventure (2019).
He spent much of the time between 2011–2016 travelling in Latin America, preparing and translating a major anthology from Spanish, The Other Tiger: Recent Poetry from Latin America (Seren 2016). A chronicle of these journeys, Ambassador of Nowhere, was published by Seren in 2024 and translated into Spanish. He was awarded the Society of Authors’ Premio Valle Inclán in 2025 for Invisible Dog (Carcanet), his translations of the Mexican poet Fabio Morábito. Until 2024 Richard was Professor of Creative & Critical Writing at Cardiff University. Rochard Gwyn is attending in association with Literature Across Frontiers and with the support of the Arts Council of Wales.
Hari Kunzru
Thursday – 25 June 2026, 19.00–20.00
Hari Kunzru is a British novelist and journalist, born in London in 1969. He is known for internationally acclaimed literary fiction that explores identity, technology, politics and culture, with major novels including The Impressionist, White Tears and Red Pill. His work often blends global settings and experimental storytelling, and he has also worked as a journalist for publications such as The Guardian and Wired.
Abi Daré
Thursday – 25 June 2026, 20.00–21.00
Abi Daré is a Nigerian-born author best known for her debut novel The Girl with the Louding Voice (2019). The book became an international bestseller and tells the story of a young Nigerian girl who fights for education and independence despite poverty and gender inequality. Daré writes contemporary fiction focused on girls’ rights, education and social justice, often highlighting resilience and empowerment in West African contexts.
Jonathan Coe
Friday – 26 June 2026, 21.00–22.00
Jonathan Coe studied English literature at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and holds a doctorate from the University of Warwick, where his thesis focused on Henry Fielding’s The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. He later taught at the University of Warwick while also working as a musician and jazz composer, as well as a journalist, contributing regularly to The Guardian and serving as film critic for the New Statesman. His novel Middle England was awarded the Prix du Livre Européen in 2019.
For more information, visit the Chania Book Festival (CBF) website.