Oxfam teams up with The Hay Festival

This year’s Literary Hay Prize will be renamed the Oxfam Prize at Hay following a broad promotional partnership between the development charity and the festival.

The prize, given to a current author of merit chosen by other peer authors, will be announced at the event which takes place at the end of the month in Hay-on-Wye.

Oxfam is also planning on using the event to launch a book donation drive. It aims to fund education programmes for more than 6,500 children orphaned by HIV and AIDS in Zambia, buy 8,500 camels, or provide safe water for well over a million people by collecting 500,000 books from the public, either donated at the festival or at Oxfam’s chain of 130 second-hand bookstores.

David McCullough, Oxfam’s director of trading, says: “The Hay partnership is a brilliant opportunity to show how our aim in helping people work their way out of poverty can be achieved through the love of reading and books.

“With over 20 years experience in the books business, we are passionate and knowledgeable about all things books and the difference these donations can make to people living in poverty,” he adds.