Taking Hay where the sun shines

The Hay-on-Wye literary festival - the annual event described by Bill Clinton when he visited in 2001 as "the Woodstock of the mind" - is off on adventure to celebrate its 20th birthday. It has organised an extra four-day festival to take place not in the damp fields of the Welsh borders, but in the warm and opulent splendour of Granada's Alhambra palace.

The English historian David Starkey, the Italian writer Umberto Eco and the Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan are among the speakers packing for a trip to Andalucia in early April. Peter Florence, founding director of the Hay festival, said: "The best thing about Granada is it gives us the chance to engage with Arabic literature. We all labour under the misapprehension that there is only one book in the Arabic world, the Koran. But they are going through a golden age, with 20 or 30 fantastic writers across the Middle East and the Arab world."

Starkey said: "I am looking forward to going to the Alhambra palace to talk about Catherine of Aragon in the city,which, more than any other, she regarded as home."

It is not the first time Hay has travelled abroad - there is a version of the festival in Colombia - and if Peter Florence has his way, it won't be the last. He's hoping that there will be soon be a 'Hay' every two months, somewhere in the world.