The festival, organised by Hungarofest Nonprofit, will feature the Irish singer, songwriter and author Bob Geldof, as well as a number of well known authors from Hungary and abroad.
Hay Festival managing director Lyndy Cooke said ?great literature will be celebrated in the mood of a fiesta? at the event.
The first Hay Festival took place 25 year ago in the Welsh village of Hay-on-Wye. Now Hay runs 15 festivals on five continents. Last year, these events drew more than 200,000 people.
Cooke said the festival had involved such well known international personalities as Desmond Tutu and Bill Clinton. She added that Clinton had dubbed Hay Festival ?the Woodstock of the mind?.
Geldof will perform in Budapest?s Petőfi Hall at 8pm on May 4. Concert-goers can expect to hear material from his latest album How to Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell. Geldof will speak at the Petőfi Literature Museum at 11am on May 5.
Among the other writers who will speak at the festival are the Booker Prize winner Ben Okri; Hanif Kureishi, who counts the screenplay for the modern classic My Beautiful Laundrette among his many works; Jung Chang, who wrote the global bestseller Wild Swans; the Brit Tibor Fischer, whose first novel Under the Frog was informed by the experiences of his father, a Hungarian; and the award-winning Hungarian translator and novelist György Dragomán.
The Petőfi Literature Museum and the Central European University will host the talks.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
