The Gothenburg Book Fair (Bokmässan) is Northern Europe’s largest literature festival. This year, it takes place at The Swedish Exhibition and Congress Centre (Svenska Mässan) and includes an exciting variety of writers from across the UK as well as over 700 authors and commentators from across the globe.

This year’s fair invites teachers, librarians, publishers, writers and readers to a range of seminars that focus on gender equality, as well as media and information literacy. Here’s the British Council Sweden’s bite-size guide to who’s coming from the UK, and when.

Meet the UK authors

John Yorke

Event: John Yorke: How We Tell Stories and Why. Thursday 26 September 14:00 – 14:45 / Hall F3

Yorke wrote the acclaimed work Into the Woods, and will use this seminar to explain how we tell stories and why. He’ll cover the smallest components of a story, as well its over-arching structure, and emphasise how a captivating story should be told. Educated at Newcastle University, Yorke became executive producer then executive consultant on the BBC’s EastEnders. @jyintothewoods.

David Nicholls

Event: David Nicholls: From Theatre Student to Acclaimed Author. Saturday 28 September 12.00–12.45 / Hall K2

Despite enormous success as an author with eight million books sold and titles such as One Day and the Booker Prize-nominated Us, Nicholls has not completely let go of his great passion: the world of film and TV. He recently wrote the script for Patrick Melrose, the TV series with Benedict Cumberbatch in the main role. This autumn Nicholls’s fifth novel, Sweet Sorrow, will be published in Swedish. Nicholls studied English Literature and Drama at the University of Bristol, after which he studied acting. He then worked as an actor and later became a script editor and researcher. He is the author several best-selling novels. @DavidNWriter            

Helen Pankhurst

Event: Helen Pankhurst: From the Suffragettes to MeToo. Saturday 28 September 11:00-11:45 / Hall K3 

The suffragettes’ battle to vote in Great Britain was 100 years ago, and European democracies are celebrating the centennial. But how do things look in 2019? What can we learn from the suffragettes’ struggle and how can today’s global democratic movements vitalise local democracies? In this seminar, Pankhurst, academic, activist, author and descendant of Emmeline and Sylvia Pankhurst, Ida Ostensson, Founder of the Fatta! Movement and Make Equal, and Joy Ada Onyesoh, President of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Nigeria, will discuss and debate the subject. @HelenPankhurst

Kate Davies

Event: Caitlin Moran and Kate Davies: Hard Life in London. 13:00-13:45 / Hall K2

The editor and writer, Kate Davies, was born and brought up in north-west London and studied English at the University of Oxford. Her latest book, 'In at the Deep End', has been described by The Guardian newspaper as "raucous, sexy, poignant and smart."

Maggie O’Farrell

Event: Maggie O’Farrel and Max Porter: The Driving Forces Behind Writing. 13.00-13.45 / Hall J2

Maggie O’Farrell is celebrating a 20th anniversary next year with titles such as Instructions for a Heatwave and This Must be the Place.  Her debut novel, After You'd Gone (2000), won a Betty Trask Award, and was followed by two further novels: My Lover's Lover (2002); and The Distance Between Us (2004), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award. In 2006, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox was published, and her novel The Hand That First Held Mine (2010), won the 2010 Costa Novel Award. O'Farrell was born in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, and grew up in Wales and Scotland. She educated at New Hall, Cambridge.

Max Porter

Event: Maggie O’Farrel and Max Porter: The Driving Forces Behind Writing. 13.00-13.45 / Hall J2

Max Porter had his breakthrough with Grief is the Thing with Feathers and Porter’s latest book is the fable Lanny. Porter received an MA in History of Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Prior to his writing career, he managed the Chelsea branch of Daunt Books and won the Bookseller of the Year Award. He was Editorial Director at Granta and Portobello Books until 2019.

Rachel Cusk

Event: Rachel Cusk: A Renewer of the Art of the Novel. Friday 27 September 12.00-12:45 / Hall H1

Cusk is considered a great rejuvenator of the art of the novel. In Outline, Transit and Kudos, the narration becomes a kind of listening. The individual’s identity is outlined first in meeting with other narratives, and then through turning the conventional rules of the novel inside out. Cusk tackles the central issues of our time: how we try to guide our lives by telling stories, and how stories change and guide us. Born in Canada, Cusk moved to the United Kingdom and read English at New College, Oxford. She published her first novel  at the age of twenty-six.

Raoul Martinez

Event Raoul Martinez: Freedom – An Argument for Lack of Freedom? Saturday 28 September 10:00-10:45 / Hall F2 

Raoul Martinez: Who is free in our time? Sunday 29 September 11.00-11.45 / Hall K1

In Creating Freedom: Power, Control and the Fight for Our Future, Martinez states that concepts such as free choice, freedom of speech and the free market are used to justify the opposite of freedom. Why and what is freedom? This seminar offers a dialogue about the issue as an argument for lack of freedom with Andreas Johansson Heino, Director of Publishing at Timbro, and Kajsa Ekis Ekman, an author. Martinez is an artist, writer and documentarian. His portraits have been selected for exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery, and he has painted leading figures in the arts and academia.

Tessa Hadley

Event: Tessa Hadley: The Uncrowned Queen of the Art of the Novel. Thursday, 26 September 16:30-16:50 / Hall G4

Tessa Hadley: Portrays our Inner Lives. Friday 27 September 16:00-16:45 / Hall K2 

Hadley is a master of depicting human shortcomings. In Late in the Day, she portrays two married couples whose lives and stories are tightly interconnected, and asks what happens when one of them dies? In this seminar, she speaks with her publisher about her experiences. Hadley studied at the University of Cambridge and completed several novels before she found a publisher. She went on to undertake a PhD at the University of the West of England and since 2016 has published six novels, plus short-story collections.

Caitlin Moran

Event: Caitlin Moran and Kate Davies: Hard Life in London. 13:00-13:45 / Hall K2

Caitlin Moran: Coming of Age in the Era of Brit Pop. 15.00-15.45 / Hall K2

The19-year-old music journalist Dolly Wilde involuntarily ends up in the spotlight after having gone home with a popular comedian. How is a young woman supposed to resist a famous, influential man? Moran’s hilarious and heart-warming novel How to Be Famous is an acerbic critique of the patriarchy in general and the music industry in particular. Here, the British author and journalist discusses love, and becoming an adult. @caitlinmoran