Description
Julian Hoffman joins us to discuss his beautiful memoir Lifelines, a story of shelter, generosity and welcome, and of searching for home in the mountains and lakes of northern Greece. He will be in conversation with fellow author Charles Foster. Tickets are £5 including a glass of wine or soft drink.
Julian Hoffman’s writing is knockout beautiful, perceptive, sensitive, thoughtful, beguiling, deeply smart, full of humanity, and a lifeline in itself. – Keggie Carew
When Julian Hoffman and his wife Julia found themselves disillusioned with city life, they stumbled upon a book about Prespa, Greece, and what began as curiosity became a life-changing decision to make Prespa their home. Prespa, where three countries come together around two huge lakes, where limestone collides with granite and heat-pulsing Mediterranean ecosystems meet their colder, Balkan relatives. Languages, wartime histories and rivers converge, and pelicans, bears and people leave their footprints on the water’s edge – next to unexploded bombs.
Lifelines is not only the tale of a courageous leap into a new life, but of seasons punctuated by unforgettable encounters, from a stare-down with a bear surrounded by Spring wildflowers to a deep-winter meeting with fourteen wrens sheltering above a frozen doorway. Julian seamlessly weaves an intricate web of stories – of conflict and possibility; of refuge lost and found; of the wild lifelines that connect us all as we move through the world seeking a home.