A dramatic dose of theatre and live music will mark this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival as well as Booker Prize winners, the First Minister, Scotland's new Makar, and a host of leading literary names.
The theme of this year's festival, which this year encompasses plays, performances and folk music as well as the written word, is "the power of the human mind to imagine a better world."
Appearances by leading writers, including Scotland's new national poet Jackie Kay, will include American novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, Man Booker prize winner Han Kang, historical fiction writer Philippa Gregory, and Eimear McBride launching the follow-up to her award-winning A Girl is a Half Formed Thing.
Read more: Outlander author Diana Gabaldon added to new Scottish book festival
The Scottish actor Alan Cumming, comedian Stewart Lee and survival expert Ray Mears will also attend, as will former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Mark Thompson, the former director general of the BBC, will launch an argument on "why the internet and 24 hour news has failed to lead to better democracy" at the festival which runs from 13-29 August.
Ms Kay, will be interviewed by Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland.
As one of the festival's Guest Selector series, Kay will look at the importance of poetry in everyday life - she will talk to Zaffar Kunial about being a British writer of mixed heritage in the 21st century; with her son, Matthew, about the impact of war and anti-war poetry on her grandfather, and with the Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.
Other world renowned authors making their first appearance in Edinburgh include Thomas Keneally from Australia, one of China’s leading novelists Can Xue, Mexican writer Álvaro Enrigue and Jean-Christophe Rufin, co-founder of Médecins sans Frontières.
From the world of sport, David Millar, Chris Boardman and Mark Beaumont will talk about their lives in cycling and former goalkeeper Packie Bonner recalls his 30 year career with Celtic and Ireland.
Read more: Edinburgh International Festival 2016 - a packed programme
Musicians Wilko Johnson, Tim Burgess of The Charlatans and Brix Smith-Start speak of their lives in, and out of, their respective bands, and James Robertson is joined by folk musicians to perform extracts from Pilgrimer, his Scots reimagining of Joni Mitchell’s 1976 album Hejira.
American theatre-maker Bryan Doerries will bring his "extraordinary performance Theatre of War", while a centrepiece of the Migrant Stories within the Book Festival this August will be the world premiere of a specially commissioned theatrical adaptation of Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro’s short stories.
Adapted for the stage by multi award-winning playwright Linda McLean, The View from Castle Rock imagines the "extraordinary experiences of Munro’s Scottish ancestors who sailed from Leith Docks in 1818 in the hope of a better life in Canada."
The production is presented in collaboration with Stellar Quines.
French graphic artist Barroux presents the world premiere performance of Alpha, a "dramatic realisation and live drawing" of his powerful graphic novel, about an African migrant who leaves Mali to find his family in France.
At the end of the festival, Philip Howard revives David Greig’s play Europe as a rehearsed reading featuring nine actors.
First performed in 1994, the play "still resonates powerfully with today’s themes of refugees seeking a new home."
Read more: Outlander author Diana Gabaldon added to new Scottish book festival
Billy Bragg will also present his best known songs, and other live performances at this year’s festival include Wi the Haill Voice, Edwin Morgan’s translations of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poetry developed by actor Tam Dean Burn and Love Song to Lavender Menace, the dramatic retelling by playwright James Ley of the story of Edinburgh’s radical LGBT bookshops.
Scottish Booker Prize winner James Kelman will introduce his new novel Dirt Road, AL Kennedy will present her new novel Serious Sweet and Neil Broadfoot will launch his new novel, All the Devils.
The festival's theme will encompass "Europe’s place in the world and our place in Europe; the implications of the current refugee crisis; the
effect of migration on Scots both here at home and around the globe and the role of society in our wellbeing."
More than 800 writers, poets, illustrators, politicians, journalists, historians, scientists, philosophers and playwrights
from 55 countries will take part in events in Charlotte Square Gardens.
Nick Barley, director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, said : "You could say that the theme of this year’s Festival is ‘Project No Fear’.
"It’s about encouraging and celebrating the sort of courageous, positive, creative thinking that we desperately need in order to make the world a better place for everyone, rather than just for a privileged few.
"Novelists, journalists, scientists and poets – writers are the people we always turn to at a time when we need to imagine better.
"We welcome legendary novelists, prize-winning journalists and life-changing poets, as well as emerging talents whose unforgettable stories will revolutionise our future thinking. All in all, it’s a festival bursting at the seams with big ideas."
Winners of the University of Edinburgh’s James Tait Black Prizes will be announced at the Book Festival as will the young Scottish poet receiving the biennial Edwin Morgan Poetry Award.
The first Muslim woman and the first Iranian to win a Nobel Peace Prize, Shirin Ebadi, will discuss her campaign for freedom of speech and equality before the law in Iran.
Anniversaries celebrated and commemorated in this year’s programme include 400 years since the death of Shakespeare, 200 years since the birth of Charlotte Brontë, 80 years since the start of the Spanish Civil War, 100 years since the birth of Roald Dahl and 100 years since the Easter Rising.
The former Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill will bring his account of the Lockerbie bombing.
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