Authors auction character names

Readers who win a bid will have a character in a forthcoming novel named after them. The character naming auction raises money for survivors of torture, with Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith and Ian McEwan among the literary stars taking part.

The prize pool extends well beyond character names:

• •Original artwork by Quentin Blake
• •A rare book of Mary Wollstonecraft stories illustrated by William Blake
• •A book club visit from the author Louise Doughty

More than 75 authors, poets, artists and illustrators are supporting the festival.

Festival at the London Library

The charity literary auction forms part of Freedom from Torture's 10th anniversary literary festival. The event, featuring a poetry competition and live readings, takes place at the London Library on 11 November.

Other fundraising strands include:

• •A bookmark raffle in which writers have drawn over 30 bookmarks themselves, with the winning bidder also receiving a signed copy of the author's own book. Among the writers who have drawn designs are David Nicholls, Mark Haddon, Felicity Cloake, Nathan Filer, Nikesh Shukla, Sathnam Sanghera and Jeremy Vine.
• •A poetry competition centred on the experiences of torture survivors, judged by the Booker prize-winning novelist Alan Hollinghurst and the poet Rachael Allen.

Chevalier's years of naming strangers

Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Last Runaway, has joined this auction and has backed the charity's literary auctions since 2006. She admitted she was initially nervous about handing characters over to strangers, saying: "Names are important to me in my books. What I choose to call a character, who I'm going to live with in my head for the next few years, they need to mean something to me."

Her first winning bidder was Laura Devine, whose name went to a circus performer in the novel Burning Bright; the two remained friends. She has since taken part in three more character-naming auctions, one of which turned the name Dody Bienenstock into a "no-nonsense landlady" in San Francisco.

Charity warns on legal protections

Freedom from Torture warns that changes to legal protections could put torture survivors at risk of being returned to the countries they fled. Samuel Morton, the charity's special events and philanthropy manager, said the festival is inspired by Write to Life, the UK's longest-running refugee writers group and, it is believed, the only one in the world for torture survivors.

Morton criticised government proposals to weaken the appeals system and raised concerns over the appetite across Europe to weaken safeguards such as Article 3 of the European convention on human rights. "Poor-quality asylum decisions risk sending survivors back into the hands of their torturers," he said, adding: "These protections are fundamental and must not be weakened for political convenience."

Chevalier also reflected on why the cause matters to her. "I'm an immigrant myself, but nobody's ever questioned my right to be here. And that's because I'm white and American," she said. On writing itself, she said: "The story of your life is inside of you and for a lot of people it's not great."

Four Write to Life members will perform their own work at the London Library alongside Max Porter and the poet John Hegley, as part of the 11 November festival programme.