BROS star Luke Goss and a rap concert in St George's Hall will be among the highlights of this Summer's Bradford Literature Festival.

Literary heavyweights such as Simon Armitage, Jeanette Winterson and Lemn Sissay will rub shoulders with TV presenter June Sarpong, politicians Shashi Tharoor and Sayeeda Warsi and rappers Lowkey and Saul Williams during the 10 day festival, which will take place at venues throughout the city.

Hailed as the most diverse literature festival in the UK, the event will feature over 500 speakers taking part in more than 400 sessions.

The event will run from June 28 to July 7.

Major anniversaries marked during the event include the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the 30th anniversary of the fatwa calling for the execution of Salman Rushdie, the centenary of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the bicentenary of the Peterloo Massacre, and 50 years since the Stonewall riots.

And this year will feature a new food strand to the festival - celebrating the cuisine of places like Syria and Kashmir.

The Bradford Comico will return, and a series of children's events and performances will take place in City Park.

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Festival appearances include writers Chris Riddell, Jeanette Winterson, Bernadine Evaristo, Steve Silberman, Karen Armstrong, A.A. Dhand and A.C. Grayling, poets Lemn Sissay, George the Poet, Simon Armitage, Imtiaz Dharker and Michael Rosen, musicians Luke Goss, Lady Leshurr, Lowkey and Saul Williams, scientist Mark Miodownik, politicians Shashi Tharoor and Sayeeda Warsi, broadcaster June Sarpong, comedian Sofie Hagen, Islamic scholar Habib Ali al-Jifri, and many more.

New works launching at this year’s festival include One Way Out by Bradford crime writer A.A. Dhand, and Meetings with Mountains by Peter Sanders, the world’s pre-eminent photographer of the Muslim world.

Other speakers include best-selling author of The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides, and investigative historian Peter Vronsky, who will discuss his book Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers from the Stone Age to the Present.

The festival will be expanding the music side this year with a landmark concert in St George's Hall.

Annual events such as ‘Sufiana Kalaam’ will return—a traditional night of Urdu music and poetry dating back more than 700 years.

Bringing the festival well and truly into 2019, this strand will culminate in a specially curated concert featuring British grime artist Lady Leshurr, American rapper Saul Williams, and electronic dub poetry outfit King Midas Sound, taking place at the city’s newly refurbished St George’s Hall, the oldest concert hall in the UK.

Syima Aslam, Director of Bradford Literature Festival, said: “Bradford Literature Festival is about meeting an urgent and vital public need for space in which the extraordinary times we live in can be explored, interrogated and better understood, as well as acknowledging and celebrating that there is still much that is beautiful and hopeful in the world.

"This year, for the fifth time, Bradford Literature Festival is proud to deliver a programme which celebrates diversity, empathy, and artistic excellence, offers platform to marginalised voices, and will lift the spirits of audiences and visitors from our local communities and across the world.”

The festival operates an ethical pricing policy aimed at reducing barriers to engagement and ensuring that as many people as possible can attend festival events. Tickets are free to anyone on benefits or living in social housing, refugees and asylum seekers, and anyone caring for a disabled audience member. Tickets are also discounted for students and senior citizens.

The festival formed in 2014, has grown from an audience of 968 attendees to over 70,000 in just five years.

It has been hailed as one of the most inspirational in the UK owing to the breadth of its programming and diversity of its speakers and audiences. In 2018 the festival attracted a 52 per cent BAME audience, with 42 per cent of all speakers also coming from BAME backgrounds.

Pre-release events go on sale today. The final programme will be released on Good Friday, April 19. Further information and updates at www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk