John Gimlette Great Explorers event London, October 2010

John Gimlette

Prize-winning author whose travels have taken him from Laos to Eritrea, and through most of Latin America. He practises as a barrister in London

John Gimlette was born in London in 1963, read law at Cambridge, and has travelled to over 60 countries. He is the author of three books: At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels in Paraguay, Theatre of Fish; Travels in Newfoundland and Labrador, and Panther Soup: A European Journey in War and Peace. The first two were nominated by The New York Times as being among the “100 Notable Books of the Year”, and all three have featured on BBC Radio 4.

Gimlette has an eye for the curious and prides himself on his wide-ranging research and ambitious itineraries. His travels have taken him from Laos to Eritrea, and through almost every country in Latin America. Along the way, he's worked as a ranch hand, taught English, and manned a frontier-post for Bolivian customs. In 1997, he won the Shiva Naipaul Prize for travel writing, and, since then, he's contributed articles and photographs to a wide range of magazines and broadsheet newspapers. He lives in London where he practices as a barrister.