Former “angry young man” Alan Sillitoe and Chilean novelist Isabel Allende are among the distinguished authors visiting Norwich for a celebration of the written word.

Former "angry young man" Alan Sillitoe and Chilean novelist Isabel Allende are among the distinguished authors visiting Norwich for a celebration of the written word.

The UEA has announced the line-up for its Spring Literary Festival, which begins next month and includes visits by nine leading writers.

Best-selling author Louis De Bernieres, who lives in South Norfolk, will be speaking on May 12, while the 30th anniversary of Virago Modern Classics will be toasted with a special talk on June 2.

Isabel Allende's first novel, The House of the Spirits, met with international acclaim and she has gone on to publish 16 books. She will appear on April 24 and will discuss her work and her new book, The Sum of our Days, a memoir based on her own journals and daily correspondence with her mother in Chile.

Alan Sillitoe, who will give a talk on March 12, was one of the group of maverick 1950s writers known as "angry young men" and is probably most famous for his novels Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, which were both made into classic films.

Among others to appear are Booker short-listed Michele Roberts on March 5; former Guardian feature writer and award-winning novelist Linda Grant on April 16; illustrator and author Posy Simmonds on April 30 and travel writer, cultural historian and literary critic Robert MacFarlane on May 14.

All events begin at 7pm in Lecture Theatre 1 at UEA.

Individual tickets at £5 and £45 season tickets are available from the box office on 01603 508050.