Members and guests are invited to join the Cambridge Society of Dorset for a talk by John Gimlette, a Law graduate from Jesus College, Cambridge, 1982.

John Gimlette will tell us the story of his three-month journey amongst the fantastical landscapes, beguiling creatures, and isolated tribes of Madagascar. He will focus on the humans rather than the lemurs, walking us through the remarkable history, as he did. Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world, and yet humans only arrived a few thousand years ago and the road network is as small as tiny Jamaica’s. Since then, the story has been about eighteen warring tribes, slavery, a bungled French invasion (1896), a curious little side-show in WW2, and now the chaotic somewhat medieval present.  He has written that “It says everything of my travels that I came back with three spears, some magic charms, a tear-gas cannister, and some eggshell from the elephant bird, which once stood 10 feet tall.”  John has been traveling all over the world, since crossing the Soviet Union by train at the age of seventeen. He has written a most impressive list of thoughtful and amusing books about his travels, lectured widely about his journeys, and won numerous prizes and awards for his travel writing.  Somehow, he also managed to read Law at Jesus, and he runs a parallel career as a barrister in London.