The UK has an exceptionally rich literary tradition: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Kipling, Hardy, Orwell, Wells, Auden all continue to have a global audience. Contemporary writing has many cultural influences. Writers such as James Kelman, Caryl Philips, Jeannette Winterson, Salman Rushdie, Irvin Welsh and Benjamin Zephaniah are changing perceptions about the use of language and dialect in writing, drawing from many influences to produce challenging and innovative work.

There are more than 200 annual literary prizes in the UK offered for many different categories of work. The Booker Prize, for UK and Commonwealth citizens, is the most prestigious, although the Whitbread Prize (for UK citizens) and the Orange Prize for Fiction (for any woman writing in English) also signify great acclaim. Talent is fostered in a number of creative writing courses at British universities led by established authors. Novelist Malcolm Bradbury started the best known at the University of East Anglia.

The quality and range of literature for children is a particular national asset - from Edward Lear to Beatrix Potter, from Roald Dahl, to JK Rowling and Philip Pullman. A common theme is that they are all enjoyed by adults too. JK Rowling is a global publishing phenomenon with more than 100 million copies of her Harry Potter books sold to audiences across the world.

The media for literary output has never been so broad. There is strong demand for consumer and non-fiction books, including biographies and autobiographies; a huge magazine industry; daily and Sunday newspapers that carry supplements with travel features, lifestyle, and story-telling; and fast-growing digital content publishing. As well as printed and online work, performance poets bring diverse audiences to the literary world by performing on buses, in supermarkets, pubs and cafes