Hay Festival 2012: Harry Belafonte is a guest star Belafonte, 84, who was born in Harlem, New York, was the first African-American ever to win an Emmy Award and was a key confidant to Martin Luther King Jr. His dedicated work on behalf of African children stricken by poverty and HIV/AIDS, as well as his outspoken advocacy for the poor and oppressed across the globe, has earned international recognition. Belafonte is also known as a vibrant and seminal musician. A Second World War Navy veteran, Belafonte worked as a club singer until his breakthrough 1956 album, Calypso, which was the first LP in history to sell more than one million copies. He was dubbed the King of Calypso for popularising Caribbean music in The Banana Boat Song, with its signature lyric 'Day-O'. He is still an active campaigner and orator and the subject of a new film called Sing Your Song, directed by Susanne Rostock. In a speech to Columbia students this week, he said: "Why are you just a spectator and not a participant?" Among the other headline guests announced today are Michael Ignatieff, giving The Raymond Williams Lecture; Israeli novelist David Grossman; London Mayor and Telegraph columnist Boris Johnson; MP Tom Watson, who has been at the core of the hacking enquiry; Al Jazeera founder Wadah Khanfar; Cairo observer Ahdaf Soueif. English tenor Ian Bostridge, whose book A Singer's Notebook was recently published, will be at Hay along with literary titan Mario Vargas Llosa. Peruvian Nobel Laureate has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays. His international breakthrough came with the 1960s novel The Time of The Hero. In 1995, he was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's most distinguished literary honour. Ian McEwan will chair an event with Nobel scientist James Watson.