BRADFORD Literature Festival is returning to live venues, with a line-up that includes best-selling writer Caitlin Moran, TV presenter Anita Rani and former Great Britain rugby league captain Ellery Hanley.

The festival was virtual last year, due to the pandemic, but is back from June 25 to July 4 with half the events in city centre venues and outdoor locations, and the other half online. Guests include Bradford crime writer AA Dhand, children's novelists Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Rosen and comedian Tez Ilyas.

The Brontë Heritage Weekend returns with a walking tour taking of tributes by creatives including Kate Bush carved into stones between Haworth and Thornton. And the festival programme marks anniversaries include the 2001 Manningham riots, 50 years of the independence of Bangladesh, 20 years since 9/11 and the fifth anniversary of the death of Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox.

A focus on local writers includes Anita Rani, whose coming-of-age memoir The Right Sort of Girl reflects on growing up in Bradford; former Telegraph & Argus reporter Saima Mir, showcasing her debut novel The Khan; Born in Bradford research fellow Aamnah Rahman; and Bradford Synagogue chairman Rudi Leavor whose memoir reveals his escape from Nazi Germany.

The festival features more than 220 speakers and over 100 events, including a new project with the British Council, From Keighley to Karachi, in which 10 female arts producers from the UK and Pakistan begin a cultural exchange. There are walking tours of historic areas of the city and Undercliffe Cemetery ,and a focus on race and ethnicity includes a look at the Black Lives Matter movement, a commemoration of the New Cross Fire which killed 13 young black people in 1981, and podcast The Colour of our Politics specially recorded at the festival by Bradford playwright Javaad Alipoor with Tanya Vital.

Festival director Syima Aslam said: “After an entirely digital edition in 2020, we’re incredibly excited to bring BLF back into some of the physical spaces for which it was conceived. We owe a great deal of thanks to the Culture Recovery Fund. We have greatly missed venues such as the debating chamber at City Hall and our beloved gothic Waterstone’s bookshop in the Wool Exchange, and we can’t wait to fill them with inspiring, thought-provoking conversation.

"We are increasing our efforts to ensure that those who are not engaged digitally don't miss out, with community events including family activities in Bradford parks."

* Tickets go on sale from June 1 at bradfordlitfest.co.uk