Deborah Harkness, author of the renowned All Souls trilogy, will come all the way from the USA for the event. The All Souls series is about an academic-slash-witch who finds herself embroiled in all sorts of magical events after discovering an enchanted manuscript. The popular television series A Discovery of Witches is based on the trilogy. The Dutch translation of the fifth book in the ‘trilogy’, Het teken van de vogel, will be released in August.
Update: Due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict, Deborah Harkness will not be in person at YALFU. Her conversation was done via Zoom and will be shown at the festival. Our host Samya Hafsaoui will gladly include your questions in the interview, that will be recorded in advance. So if you have a question for Deborah Harkness, please email info@ilfu.com.

Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé from London earned renown with her debut Ace of Spades, a book about racism at an elite boarding school that has been described as 'Get Out meets Gossip Girl’. Her third book, For Eids and a Funeral will be published in June. She wrote the enemies-to-lovers romance together with Adiba Jaigirdar. This year we will also welcome Swedish authors Johanna Lindback and Sara Ohlsson, two-thirds of the YA trio together with Lisa Bjärbo. They will talk about their recent bestsellers Ugly Girls and Annoying Girls, the first and second book in a feminist trilogy about cyberbullying. And of course, we will also feature today’s biggest YA stars in the Netherlands. Carlie van Tongeren will tell about her new novel Alleen thuis, a story about the 15-year-old foster child Juna, which will arrive hot off the press one week before the YALFU. Lisette Kuijt will talk about the unusual journey she went through leading up to the debut of her fantasy novel De eeuwige nacht.

Newly added is Maggie Stiefvater, the author of a large stack of Young Adult literature and fantasy novels, including the 𝘙𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘯 series and 𝘸𝘰𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘷𝘢𝘯 𝘔𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘺 𝘍𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴 trilogy (𝘏𝘶𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳, 𝘍𝘭𝘶𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳, 𝘝𝘰𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘫𝘥).
And Dutch writer Lucas Versteeg, from our hometown Utrecht, will tell about his new book Frambozenzomer.

Doors open at 13:00, to give plenty of time for a visit to the massive book stall and wide selection of goodies at the YA market. We will announce the participating sellers soon. The on-stage programme will kick off at 14:00, followed by plenty of opportunities for book signings and browsing the market stalls.