Exclusive:Salman Rushdie, Alan Cumming, Alice Oseman and Dolly Alderton to take part in Edinburgh International Book Festival

Jenny Niven has revealed plans for a series of 1000-capacity interviews at Edinburgh University's McEwan Hall, one of the city’s biggest Fringe venues.

Her inaugural line-up will also feature a late-night Spiegeltent programme at its new base in the former Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

Cumming and Masson will return to the stage 40 years after making their Fringe debut to launch a new book on their much-loved cabaret double act Victor and Barry.

Rushdie, who will appear at the festival live from his home in New York two years on from the knife attack that almost claimed his life, will discuss a new memoir which reflects on his survival and recovery.

Ms Niven has unveiled a new collaboration with Underbelly, who have run the McEwan Hall as a Fringe venue in recent years, on The Front List, the new strand of 1000-capacity events at the McEwan Hall.

The A-listed building will be used by the book festival for the first time to coincide with its relocation to a new home at the university's Edinburgh Futures Institute complex, which has been created in the former hospital near the Meadows.

Other guests will include Alice Oseman, the writer and illustrator behind the Heartstopper graphic novels and TV series, author, comedian, Pointless host Richard Osman, presenter and author James O'Brien, columnist and author Dolly Alderton, children’s writer Sarah Crossan, and the novelists Philippa Gregory and Matt Haig.

The festival, which launches its full programme launch in June, is joining forces with Fringe promoters Underbelly to stage The Front List strand.

Jackie Kay, Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Wren James, Mishal Husain and Chitra Ramaswamy are all lined up as interviewers for the McEwan Hall events, which go on sale on 25 April and will be live-streamed.

The McEwan Hall will be one of five major spaces hosting events with authors and writers during this year’s festival, which will feature more than 600 guests across around 550 events.

All other events will be staged a few minutes walk away at the university's Edinburgh Futures Institute complex, which has been created in the A-listed former hospital building, near the Meadows.

Another key strand will be “Back To Ours”, a programme of late-night performances in the book festival’s Spiegeltent, which will host daily events in the courtyard outside the university complex.

The book festival’s relocation after three years at Edinburgh College of Art and nearly 40 in Charlotte Square Gardens coincides with Ms Niven’s first festival as director.

However she led the programming of the 2017 for months while her predecessor, Nick Barley, was on sabbatical to chair the judging panel of the Man Booker International Prize, and forged a new collaboration with the Royal Lyceum Theatre.

Ms Niven was previously executive producer of the Edinburgh International Cultural Summit, head of literature at Creative Scotland, the co-founder of the first book festival in Beijing, in China, and programme manager at the Melbourne Writers Festival, in Australia.

She led the programming of events marking the centenary of the birth of Edinburgh author Muriel Spark, was executive producer of Dandelion, a six-month-long harvest-themed festival staged across Scotland, and was co-founder of Push The Boat Out, a new festival of poetry, performance and spoken word in Edinburgh.

Discussing her vision for the future of Edinburgh’s annual literary celebration, Ms Niven said: "I’ve worked in festivals throughout my whole working career and I’ve always wanted to do this job.

"It’s a huge opportunity to do all sorts of new things. I'm excited about what the book festivals of the future are going to look like.

"We’re going to be collaborating left, right and centre. It’s a way I’ve always liked to work, it’s really satisfying and it always throws up interesting new things. There are also so many other great organisations doing interesting stuff.

"Moving the book festival into the body of the kirk a bit more allows us to do something a bit different with it.

"With the new venue in a new location and a new approach to programming it should feel like it’s been reborn.”

The book festival has already announced plans for a series of Words from the wards events which will bring to life the personal reflections of leading writers, former workers and members of the public about the old infirmary building.

Dr Gavin Francis, Michael Pedersen, Hannah Lavery, Sara Sheridan, Lisa Williams and Kirstin Innes are among the writers expected to reflect on its past history.

Ms Niven added: “The great thing about the Edinburgh Futures Institute building is the mix of the historic and the futuristic that people will find there.

“We’re going to be using the amazing renovated spaces inside the building, as well as the main courtyard outside, for the festival.

"The building is really reshaping that part of the city. Our whole project to move into that neck of the woods really signifies what we’re keen to do with the festival.

"We want to bring our much-loved existing audience with us and we hope it’ll feel very much like the book festival that we know and love.

"But we also want to meet new and different audiences, and really open up the festival to more people, make it feel more relevant for a wider audience and allow us to have a different approach to programming.

“The McEwan Hall feels like a natural fit for us. It's a great venue, which will allow us to speak to different audiences. It’s a really good chance for us to highlight the kind of things that we put on.”

Underbelly director Charlie Wood: “This is such a great partnership to be part of, bringing together two of Edinburgh’s summer festivals in a crown jewel of the city, allowing a wider audience to see these amazing writers discuss their work in a venue with a fabulous and long history of speakers.”