Southwold Literary Festival ~ SIMON LOFTUS IN CONVERSATION WITH LUCY HUGHES-HALLETT

Southwold’s Simon Loftus (former wine merchant, restaurateur and brewery chairman) has written extensively on wine, food, travel and social history. He is the author of “Anatomy of the Wine Trade”, “A Pike in the Basement: Tales of a Hungry Traveller”, & “An Illustrated History of Southwold”. “ Puligny-Montrachet : Journal of a Village in Burgundy” was awarded the 1993 Glenfiddich Award for Wine Book of the Year.

His latest book “Who's There?: Travels in Place and Time” features travel stories, ranging in space & time. Some are memories of a re-imagined past, others more personal. Simon Loftus’s explorations begin with a performance of Hamlet off the coast of Africa, in 1607, & each of the stories that follow echoes and reflects the opening words of that play, ‘Who’s there?’. They encompass the strange foundations of probability theory, the forthright epitaphs of Suffolk gravestones, the pursuit of wine, dusk on the beach of Essaouira, the simit vendors of Istanbul, an elegy for Palmyra. And much more.

Unreserved seating.