Bernie Sanders, the United States politician who electrified last year’s presidential campaign by winning widespread support for his radical policies, is due to speak in Brixton next month.
He will be launching his book, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, in Britain. The event, at 7.30 pm on 2 June (doors 6pm), will be streamed live to the Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts.
Festival director Peter Florence said: “What we hope from Bernie is that he’ll galvanize young people like he did in America. The way he’s working to interrogate every stupid bill in the Senate is heroic and essential. He’s a model opposition leader.”
At the moment Academy tickets are only available to members of the O2 priority ticket scheme.
Sanders is serving his second term in the US Senate representing the small New England state of Vermont after winning re-election in 2012 with 71 percent of the vote.
His previous 16 years in the House of Representatives make him the longest serving independent member of Congress in US history.
Born in 1941 in Brooklyn, Sanders lectured at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard before his 1990 election as a Vermont member of Congress.
He says that throughout his career he has focused on the growing income and wealth gaps in the United States.
He is chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and also serves on the Environment and Public Works Committee, where he has focused on global warming and rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure of the United States.
