IPSWICH INSTITUTE
READING ROOM & LIBRARY

After the Bible, Don Quixote is the world’s most translated book. Such success has guaranteed “the knight of sorrowful countenance” global recognition, but his creator, Miguel de Cervantes, remains more elusive.

This study day explores the life of an extraordinary man. Relentlessly pursued by debt, ill-fortune and failure, Cervantes was variously an adventurer, soldier, hostage, spy, purveyor, tax-collector, would-be poet, frustrated playwright… Then, towards the end of his life, he wrote Don Quixote and became instantly famous (though never rich).

Alongside our biographical focus, there will be an overview of the historical and literary contexts as well as an introduction to Don Quixote itself. (Haven’t read the book? Doesn’t matter.)

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Michael Taylor, a Borough Council conservation officer, will talk about the distinctive character of Ipswich highlighted during the course of a four year study. The Urban Characterisation Study looks at those parts of the town outside the conservation areas and therefore often overlooked and identifies the distinctive characteristics which should be protected from insensitive development.

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Julia Blackburn is a writer of novels, travel books, biography and memoir. Threads: the delicate life of John Craske is a “wonderfully eccentric biography” which “paints vivid pictures of both artist and biographer”.

Public Event