10 highlights from 2025 Edinburgh International Book Festival - Nicola Sturgeon, Alice Oseman, Irvine Welsh

Scottish authors Irvine Welsh and Maggie O'Farrell are to join Heartstopper writer Alice Oseman, as well as former first minister Nicola Sturgeon at this year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival.

The festival today unveiled its full programme, which is based around the theme of Repair, seeking to explore things which feel broken and looking at how they could be fixed – from the physical to the political, the emotional to the environmental, and beyond.

Director Jenny Niven said: “For me, these events should feel like a statement of resilience and hope and optimism. Speaking to writers and thinkers and philosophers and activists about how we might move forward and repair some of the things that are broken is a really wonderful thing.

“I'm hoping that people, when they come to the festival, they'll have that experience, and they'll learn something, and they'll go away and think about what that means in their own life, or their own approach to politics, or their own approach to mental health and well being, or whatever aspect speaks to them.”

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The festival has launched a new kids’ zone for 2025, as well as a separate Young Adult programme, which will feature Ms Oseman, author of hit graphic novel Heartstopper, as well as US writer R F Kuang.

The festival is also set to increase its outdoor bar area and expand the entrance onto Middle Meadow Walk, in its second year at in its new home at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. Meanwhile, book groups will be able to reserve a specially reserved area to discuss their thoughts on events.

The book festival is to livestream more than 100 events to libraries across 12 Scottish local authorities this August, as part of its communities programme.