Southbank hosts first festival of literature

The festival will take place over two weeks from 29 June to 12 July and is set to become an annual event.

The programme ranges from dub poetry with Linton Kwesi Johnson to a lecture on civilisation by Wole Soyinka, the Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian author and political activist.

There will be debates, performances, sessions of improvised writing and special events for children in venues across the 21-acre site.

A thousand free books about London or written by Londoners will be placed around the centre to be shared and passed on in a giant "book-crossing".

They include classics such as Down And Out In Paris And London by George Orwell and The Diary Of Samuel Pepys, as well as contemporary fiction such as Notes On A Scandal by Zoe Heller and Zadie Smith's White Teeth. The centenary of the birth of WH Auden will be marked with an evening of readings by James Fenton, Simon Armitage and Kwame Kwei-Armah.

Liverpool poets Roger McGough and Brian Patten will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the influential Mersey Sound anthology with a special event called 40-Love.

The event will also mark the re-opening of the Royal Festival Hall's Poetry Library, which was recently described by Radio 4 as one of the world's great libraries.

Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre, said: "We hope the London Literature Festival will grow to become a leading festival of national and international standing, drawing writers, artists and audiences from around the world."

Previous literary events in London, such as the Word, have not had a dedicated home, organisers said.