THE winner of an annual writing award will be announced tonight [Friday] as Durham Book Festival gets underway.

This year’s festival features leading names including Anthony Horowitz, David Baddiel, Kathryn Williams, Juno Dawson, Michael Morpurgo and Pat Barker.

The festival opens at Durham Town Hall tonight when the winner of the 2016 Gordon Burn Prize will be announced.

Shortlisted authors are Jeremy Gavron, Olivia Laing, Ottessa Moshfegh, Harry Parker, David Szalay and Adrian Tempany.

The 2016 festival will have a flavour of the First World War to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.

To mark the occasion, this year’s Big Read novel is Regeneration by Pat Barker.

The Booker Prize winning author will be appearing at the festival alongside Michael Morpurgo, War Horse writer, to talk about writing about the First World War.

The event takes place in Durham Cathedral on Friday, October 14 from 7pm.

Other events include a chance to discover trench newspapers at Palace Green Library on Sunday, October 9 and a textiles workshop on Saturday, October 15, when artist Yvette Hawkins will create a cloth book inspired by war novel Regeneration.

Best-selling author Anthony Horowitz will make an appearance at the Gala Theatre on Wednesday, October 12, to talk about his career, including the teen spy series Alex Rider books, two Sherlock Holmes novels and a James Bond book Trigger Mortis.

The following day, one of the country’s best known politicians, Labour's Alan Johnson, will speak at the Gala Theatre about life as a constituency MP.

Festival Laureate Helen Mort will be hosting an event at Palace Green Library on Saturday, October 15, when she will premiere a specially commissioned poem, inspired by Durham and its people.

For more information about Durham Book Festival, and to see the full line up of events, visit durhambookfestival.com.