Free to go: on a motorbike across borders, languages & time, with Esa Aldegheri

*This event will be preceded by a drinks reception, doors will open at 6.30 for all in person guests!*

We could not be more excited to welcome Esa Aldegheri to the bookshop to celebrate Free To Go!

Charting a story of shrinking and expanding liberties and horizons, of motherhood, womanhood, xenophobia and changing geopolitical situations, Free to Go examines the challenges of navigating a world where many assume that women ride pillion, both on a motorbike and within relationships.

When Esa Aldegheri left Orkney on a motorbike, heading for New Zealand with her husband, she didn’t know that the journey would take eighteen months -  going from Europe to the Middle East, through Pakistan, China, India and Australia - and cross some international frontiers which are now impassable.

Part around-the-world adventure, part-literary exploration of womanhood, Free to Go is about the journeys that shape and transform us.

‘An exhilarating story of freedom and constraint, told with a confident and unwavering verve. This is a journey driven by boundless curiosity, and by the desire for connection – across borders, across languages, across time’ MALACHY TALLACK

Our Author: Esa Aldegheri is a multilingual poet, writer and academic, who has a PhD in Migration Studies and whose non-fiction has been published by Granta, MAP Magazine, Gutter Press, the Dangerous Women Project and others. Her poetry has been read on Radio 4 and Radio Scotland and features in several anthologies. From Scotland and Italy, Esa speaks Italian, French, Spanish and Arabic as well as English.

Our Host:Roxani Krystalliis an academic, writer and storyteller, who has worked as a practitioner in humanitarian action, peace-building, and transitional justice. Her work is interested in the themes of memory and loss, nature and place, violence and care.