The Farnham Literary Festival 2025 is set to begin on Thursday, March 6, featuring a diverse lineup of performances and talks.

Ahead of the event, the Herald spoke with some of the authors who will be taking the stage.

While the festival boasts celebrity guests such as David Walliams, Lorraine Kelly, Richard Coles, and Louis de Bernières, it also showcases a wide range of talent exploring history through the perspectives of politicians, historians, and fiction writers.

These include Michael Sheridan, an experienced journalist who has covered Southeast Asia since 1989, including the Tiananmen Square protests. Over the years, he has built extensive contacts and witnessed firsthand the rise of China’s leader and General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping.

Sheridan took on the challenging task of shedding light on this enigmatic but hugely influential figure in his book The Red Emperor: Xi Jinping and His New China.

Drawing comparisons with our area, despite China being a Communist country, he said said local meetings in China are remarkably similar to those held monthly at Farnham Town Council.

He said “As all journalists learn local council meetings and gatherings are a good place to speak to people and develop contacts, there were often big public events with Xi Jinping where you could see how he would interact with certain people.”

These meetings may be the same in principle, but the town council and its leadership do not purge their opponents, whereas in China former General Secretary Hu Jintao was removed under Xi Jinping's instructions in October 2022.

The book delves into Xi’s life, tracing his journey from his upbringing in rural China as the son of a purged CCP member to his rise to becoming arguably the most powerful leader in the world.

A new insight into Xi came from the late Roderick Lemonde MacFarquhar, a British expert on China and politician, who spoke to Sheridan about his experience teaching Xi’s only child, Xi Mingze, at Harvard University.

This provided a never-before-seen insight into the family and how the descendants of the Chinese Communist Party elite, known as the ‘Princelings’, are raised.

Sheridan said: “China is like Russia, they purge anyone who gets in their way but the Chinese political system allows them to do it more subtly than Putin.”

Another writer attending the festival is Simon Scarrow, who has published several historical fiction books, using famous settings to transport readers back in time and uncover new stories. His latest book, A Death in Berlin, revisits 1940s Berlin—a period Scarrow says draws some parallels with today.

After touring the city for inspiration, Scarrow remarked that Berlin still bears the scars of the war, but it is also known for its vibrant nightlife scene and criminal underworld, a theme he explores in the book.

Set during the Second World War, the story centres around German investigator Horst Schenke, who is trying to fend off criminals while maintaining a relationship with a Jewish woman. Schenke combats the Berlin criminal underworld at a time when Nazi officials are protecting them, posing a massive threat to both him and his relationship.

Describing the plot, Scarrow said: “If she is to be found she will be sent to the camps and never be seen again. He is likely to be sent to the camps as well and treated terribly but may be lucky to get out later.”

Local writing talent will be represented by Louise Morrish, from Alton, who has penned the novel Operation Moonlight and her upcoming book, Women of War, which will be featured as part of Waverley Abbey House's History Day on Sunday, March 9.

The Farnham Literary Festival will be the first event where Morrish will speak about her book.

Morrish won a Penguin Random House competition in 2019, which launched her writing career.

“A couple of years after that, we published Operation Moonlight and the main spark behind it was Eileen Nearne,” she said.

Eileen, known as Didi, was a secret agent for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. Louise didn’t know about her story until she stumbled across it in some newspaper stacks at work.

“As I dug a bit deeper, I discovered that there were 39 female secret agents with the SOE that had been recruited, gone through training and then had gone on to missions,” she said.

Morrish's upcoming novel, Women of War, will be the subject of her discussion at the literary festival. The novel focuses on Dorothy Lawrence and Dr Lucinda Garland.

Dorothy, aspiring to be a journalist during World War I, faced rejection. In response, she disguised herself as a British army soldier and entered the trenches with the men in an attempt to become the first female war correspondent.

Morrish said “They were ordinary women but they weren't really, because they turned out to be extraordinary women.”

The theme of war continues with Damian Lewis, another former journalist turned historian, who has authored books on the SAS that reveal some of the unique stories behind Britain’s legendary special force unit.

His series on the SAS has explored the stories of Paddy Mayne and his men during the war. Mayne has become an even more recognised figure after the hit BBC series SAS Rogue Heroes. Lewis says that while the TV series portrays Mayne as a "drunk, reckless, and ill-disciplined" character, this could not be further from the truth.

In his new book, SAS Daggers Drawn: In For the Kill, Lewis reveals the story behind Operation Gaff, a plot by the SAS to kill or capture the German World War 2 military leader Field Marshal Erwin Rommel at a château in France.

The operation was unsuccessful, as Rommel had been injured in a previous RAF attack, leading the field marshal to fly back to Germany for treatment. Despite this, the men on the ground managed to inflict damage on Nazi Germany's supply lines.

While researching the SAS, Lewis came across British Corporal Tom Moore, the only British soldier on the operation. He was able to reveal the story to Moore’s grandson, who said he had never heard many of his grandfather’s wartime stories. One of the most remarkable tales was Moore’s involvement in Operation Gaff, during which he halted a German train by shooting its engine with a Sten gun.

"Families often come to me after hearing stories about their grandparents or parents during the war, and this was the case with Steven Evans, the grandson of Tom Moore, who had never heard of Operation Gaff or his grandfather’s role in it,” said Lewis.

“The implications of a successful Operation Gaff also hit home for Evans: had they killed or captured Rommel, it’s more than likely that Moore would not have survived, meaning Steven might not have been born."