Bernardine Evaristo, Holly Jackson and Uketsu Named London Book Fair 2027 Authors of the Fair

Bernardine Evaristo, Holly Jackson and the masked Japanese horror writer Uketsu will be the London Book Fair's Authors of the Fair in 2027. The fair announced the lineup on October 23, along with picture book partners Rachel Bright and Jim Field, who will be its Children's Creatives of the Fair.

The 2027 fair runs March 16 to 18 at Excel London. Each of the authors will appear at an "In Conversation" event: Bright and Field on Tuesday, March 16; Jackson on the Main Stage on Wednesday, March 17; and Evaristo on Thursday, March 18. The fair said more details would follow, and it hasn't yet given a date for Uketsu.

The lineup

Bernardine Evaristo won the 2019 Booker Prize for Girl, Woman, Other, becoming the first Black woman and first Black British writer to take it. Her novel Mr Loverman was adapted as a BBC series in 2024. She said she'd been to the fair only once before "and the atmosphere was electrifying," adding that "now more than ever, we need to support and promote literature, literacy and the great pleasures and rewards of reading."

Holly Jackson wrote A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, a No. 1 New York Times bestseller adapted for TV by the BBC and Netflix, with a third season in production. Her first adult novel, Not Quite Dead Yet, came out in 2025 and was a No. 1 Sunday Times bestseller. It will be her first time at the fair, she said.

Uketsu is the Market Focus Author of the Fair, with Japan as the 2027 market focus. He's a YouTuber and author of horror and mystery who appears only online, behind a mask and a voice changer, and whose real identity is unknown. His books Strange Pictures, Strange Houses and Strange Buildings are published in English by Pushkin Vertigo, with Strange Maps to come. He said he hoped to talk about that next book "as much as time allows."

Rachel Bright and Jim Field have worked together on books such as The Lion Inside. Bright's own books include Love Monster and The Koala Who Could, and the fair says her work has been translated into 47 languages and sold more than five million copies. Field, who also illustrates Kes Gray's Oi Frog! series, said he left London 12 years ago "as a relatively unknown children's book illustrator," which makes coming back for his first fair "deeply special."

A first fair for most of them

Emma Lowe, the fair's director, called the group "a stellar array of talent" and said the team was looking forward to welcoming them at Excel. It's a lineup of mostly first-timers. Jackson, Field and Uketsu have never attended, and Evaristo has been once.

The Japan focus is a comeback for the program, too. The fair says 2027 is the first Market Focus since 2022, and the year it moves to Excel.

Why it matters for writers

The London Book Fair is mainly a rights market, where agents and publishers sell translation and other rights. Who it puts on stage shows what the trade is excited about. Next year that includes a Booker winner, a crime writer who crossed from teen to adult readers, a picture book pair with huge international sales and a faceless creator who built an audience on YouTube before his books took off abroad. That last one is a reminder that a strong following online can now lead to translation deals, not just the other way around.

Sources

• The London Book Fair, October 23, 2026: London Book Fair 2027 Announces Star Authors
• The London Book Fair: The LBF Edit: Day Zero and What's Ahead for LBF 2027

Photo: ExCeL London, the Docklands exhibition centre that will host the fair, seen across the water. Photo by N Chadwick, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0.