Event 'brings books alive'

There will be celebrities aplenty at this year's Oxford Literary Festival but be sure not to count Tony Benn among them. The veteran Labour politician is an exciting late addition to the festival line-up, and will be speaking at Christ Church.

Yet he will have no truck with anyone who attempts to classify him as a celebrity writer, or celebrity anything else come to that.

"I don't believe in celebrity," he told me, when I foolishly applied the term to him. "A celebrity is someone famous for being famous."

Rather than fleeting fame, Mr Benn can surely look forward to a significant place in political history, not only as the leading voice of Labour's left wing for 25 years but also as one of the 20th-century's best and most important diarists.

Few politicians or writers are better suited to literary festivals than Tony Benn, whose ability to get over his message with wit and wisdom has been fine tuned at thousands of political meetings. He also happens to possess a sense of timing that many a stand-up comedian would murder for. And it comes as no surprise that he relishes every opportunity to appear before literary festival audiences.

For despite having more than a dozen books to his name, Mr Benn sees himself belonging to the oral tradition of literature, believing there is nothing better than being able to hear, see and speak to an author.

"A face to face where people can hear an author talking brings things alive. I have learnt everything by listening and communicated everything by talking.

"When you read a book, you do not get to know much about an author and whether he knows what he is talking about and whether he really believes it." But seeing someone speak, he argues, offers a multiplicity of images that help you understand an author.

Most of his own books, he points out, have themselves been rather more about talking than writing. There have been collections of speeches and, of course, the volumes of diaries dictated on to tape., made up of words spoken into his tape recorder at the end of each day. It is a routine he continued, in and out of government and in and out of the House of Commons, all his adult life.

Another volume will soon be appearing, bringing the diaries up to the present day, with Iraq and the anti-war demonstrations no doubt figuring prominently.

Mr Benn, who went to New College and was a President of the Oxford Union, likes to say he left the House of Commons to devote more to politics. He appears to have lost none of his powers to provoke. Last summer Mr Benn even received a death threat.

"The first for quite a while," he chuckled. "I put it in the file with all the others." Death threats he can tolerate. It is just that celebrity nonsense he cannot abide.

Other highlights this year will include an appearance by Oxford author Philip Pullman, who will be talking about how his prize-winning book Northern Lights has been turned into a film starring Nicole Kidman. Visitors are promised an early glimpse of Lyra and the main characters in this eagerly awaited film, The Golden Compass. It is hoped that an exclusive sneak preview of scenes can be shown. Some of the scened were filmed in Christ Church, where the festival is based.

Other big names appearing at the six-day festival will include Jeremy Paxman who will be discussing the monarchy, and Richard Dawkins, the best-selling Oxford scientist and combative aethiest, who will be discussing his new book The God Delusion with Rod Liddle and Joan Bakewell.

Tony Benn will be speaking at the Marquee, Christ Church, on Saturday, March 24, at noon. Tickets cost £8.