Peter Florence
2019 Booker Prize Judge (Chair)
- Prizes judged
Peter Florence is the co-creator of the Hay Festival.
Peter Florence created Hay Festival in 1987 around his mother’s kitchen table, with his parents and a few friends. Over the past 32 years, Hay has brought more than 5 million people to literary events in 15 countries around the globe. Peter has championed many of the world’s greatest writers from early on in their careers, among them Arundhati Roy and DBC Pierre, who went on to win the Booker and Man Booker respectively.
He has hosted conversations about fiction with several Booker and Nobel Prize winners, including Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel, Toni Morrison and Kazuo Ishiguro. He was awarded a CBE for services to literature and charity in 2018.