Meet the Industry: Margaret Busby

Thursday 18th June 2026. 6.30pm

Brighton Book Festival is delighted to welcome the legend that is Margaret Busby.

Margaret Busby CBE, Hon. FRSL (Nana Akua Ackon) is a major cultural figure around the world. Her career has spanned work as a publisher, editor, interviewer, reviewer, scriptwriter, lyricist, radio and TV presenter, activist and mentor. She has judged prestigious literary prizes, including the Booker. In 2023, she was appointed President of English PEN.

She became Britain’s then youngest and first Black woman publisher when she co-founded Allison & Busby in the 1960s. As A&B’s editorial director for twenty years, she published an international list of more than 300 notable authors. She has edited two ground-breaking anthologies that together champion the work of more than 400 women of African descent over several centuries.

She has written numerous dramatizations and radio abridgements of books by, among others, Jean Rhys, Wole Soyinka, Walter Mosely, and Henry Louis Gates.

She has saved writers such as CLR James and George Lamming from obscurity by reprinting their works, and as a founding member of Greater Access to Publishing (GAP), she campaigned for greater diversity in the publishing industry

Margaret is also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and recipient of multiple honorary doctorates and awards.

Margaret Busby’s own collected writings, Part of the Story: Writings from Half a Century, will be published by Hamish Hamilton in 2026. With little attention previously given to her own skills as a writer, Part of the Story is a unique opportunity to enjoy her own remarkable literary output. It brings together her writings on people, places, politics and publishing, and provides a rich insight into the many elements that have contributed to shaping her life, from her childhood in Ghana to the Black writers, intellectuals, artists and activists she has worked with, befriended, supported and championed for over half a century.