Author and filmmaker Iain Sinclair is also lined up to speak at the year-long festival, in aid of the trust that runs Stoke Newington’s historic Abney Park cemetery.
Events runs on various dates, and include writers from across genres, disciplines, and backgrounds.
Nick Toner, deputy chair of the volunteer-led charity, said there were many radicals, dissenters and notable figures laid to rest in Abney Park, including prominent abolitionists and trailblazing feminists.
“Abney Park is home to many historic radicals, and it’s in their honour that we’re launching this festival,” he said.
“We’ll be thinking about radicalism in many senses – old, new, cultural, political, social and beyond.
“We’re proud to be welcoming famous names, engrossing scholars and visionary creatives to the park this year to explore a legacy that has shaped not only Abney but Hackney and beyond.
“We’re a tiny charity with a big footprint, and buying a ticket to a Radical Writers event is the perfect way to keep community-led event programming like this alive.”
Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP Diane Abbott launches the paperback version of her autobiography A Woman Like Me, on May 11 with an audience Q&A.
It describes growing up in London during the sixties as the child of working-class parents from Jamaica, then her life as a student at Cambridge followed by her election in 1987 as a Labour MP, becoming the first Black woman to take a seat in Parliament.
She went on to be the longest-serving Black MP and now the “Mother of the House” and the book is an inspirational tale of resilience and refusal to be silenced.
The event takes place in the recently revamped historic chapel at the heart of the park, with other talks happening in the Harriet Delph room next to Abney Park Cafe – constructed during the same National Lottery Heritage Fund restoration.
Sinclair, the author of award-winning novel Downriver will speak on Thursday March 27 alongside poet and writer Chris McCabe, who launches his book Dreamt by Ghosts.
Other writers appearing throughout the year include academics Bruno Leipold, Sarah Stein Lubrano and Daniel Johnson, Hackney-born gentrification author Richard Yeboah, and journalist Sharon Wright with more events to be announced.
Figures buried in the cemetery include pioneering balloonist Margaret Graham, founders of the Salvation Army William and Catherine Booth, Welsh Crimean nurse Betsi Cadwaladr, and abolitionist Josiah Conder.
Further details and booking at www.abneypark.org/radicalwriters
