Roland Gulliver appointed Director of Toronto International Festival of Authors

“I am immensely excited and honoured to be coming to Toronto and to lead the Toronto International Festival of Authors, a festival I have known and admired for many years, into its next ambitious phase,” said Roland. “I had the pleasure of participating in the 30th anniversary of the festival, working with the team to program a number of Scottish authors as part of their celebration of Scottish writing. I am looking forward to celebrating Canada’s rich, diverse and dynamic literary scene, and to sharing with its audiences the joy of books, stories and writing, and to creating conversations on issues that affect Toronto, Canada and beyond.”

Charles Baillie, TIFA Board President, says Roland was the top candidate for the role from the beginning of the recruitment phase. “We believe that TIFA has the potential to grow from Canada’s largest and longest-running festival of words and ideas to be one of the world’s top literary events. Roland’s experience and vision will greatly enhance our ability to achieve that objective.” Roland replaces previous Director Geoffrey Taylor, who retired from the festival in November 2019 after 16 years in the role

Roland departs the Book Festival having made an enormous contribution to the development of our programme, helping maintain its position as the world’s premier literature festival. Perhaps his highest profile success has been the development and growth of the free evening Unbound programme, which has set the standard for live literature programming worldwide and featured the likes of Neil Gaiman, Hollie McNish, Nile Rogers and launched the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers.

A Deputy Programme Director (Adults) – a new role within the Book Festival’s programming team - will be appointed in the coming weeks.