Since its inception, the Festival has hosted authors such as: veteran writer/broadcaster Sir Mark Tully, Man Booker Prize winners Kiran Desai and Aravind Adiga, Tash Aw, Pankaj Mishra, Xiaolu Guo, Romesh Gunesekera, Kamila Shamsie, Daniyal Mueenuddin, Nadeem Aslam, Mohsin Hamid, Mohammed Hanif, Sarfraz Manzoor, Michael Wood, Will Hutton, William Dalrymple, Amitav Ghosh, former UN Under-Secretary of State Shashi Tharoor, Xue Xinran, Amit Chaudhuri, Charles Allen, John Gittings, Chinese dissident writer Ma Jian, and Hardeep Singh Kohli.
Debates and discussions in 2010 cover conflict in Kashmir, democracy and freedom in Asia, Afghanistan, migration and displacement, Persian Gulf economies, and the development of Pakistani fiction.
Authors appearing in 2010 are: Fatima Bhutto, William Dalrymple, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Janine di Giovanni, Chang-rae Lee, Atiq Rahimi, Peter Marsden, Daljit Nagra, Moniza Alvi, Imtiaz Dharker, Kavita Jindal, Hirsh Sawhney, Glen Peters, Diane Wei Liang, Michael Booth, John Kampfner, Humphrey Hawksley, Basharat Peer, Victoria Schofield, Justine Hardy, Jaspreet Singh, Neel Mukherjee, Tishani Doshi, Nitasha Kaul, Azadeh Moaveni, Persian Gulf experts Christopher Davidson and Jim Krane, Ali Sethi, Aamer Hussein, Francis Pike and 2008 Man Asian Prize winner Miguel Syjuco.
Colin Thubron, Zaiba Malik, Nikesh Shukla, Tahmima Anam, Ching-He Huang, Prajwal Parajuly, Wendy Law Yone, Moni Mohsin, Rachel Cusk, Mimi Khalvati, Ziba Karbassi, Stephen Watts, Mirza Waheed, Roma Tearne, Daisy Hasan, Tamara Chalabi, Ali Allawi, Angela Saini, Amanda Devi, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Tabish Khair, and Hanif Kureishi.
Based in a listed John Adam style 18th century townhouse in Marylebone, Central London, featuring a Gallery, Library, Café, and three Fine Rooms, it provides a focal point for people to meet and exchange ideas.