Since its founding in 2023, the Sherborne Travel Writing Festival has celebrated travel writers as bridge builders; women and men who reach for the far horizon, who venture out from one little corner of the earth into the wide world, who connect and engage with the moment in an effort to understand different peoples, cultures and times. Empathy lies at the heart of our work, and the fundamental belief that through better understanding others we can better counter the division and isolation of the present day.
As the festival’s founder and curator, I’ve been honoured to welcome to Dorset many of the genre’s most intrepid travel writers, as well as thrilled to launch the annual £10,000 Sherborne Prize for Travel Writing (link to https://www.sherbornetravelwritingprize.com/ ). Awarded to a British or European author whose work encourages understanding between peoples and across societies, the winner – in common with the 12 extraordinary writers who speak at the festival – reflect aspects of our world, and our individual responsibility to do what we can to address profound challenges.
As Mark Twain wrote over a century ago, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” I hope you’ll join me, this year’s speakers and the prize winner to build bridges – on the page at least – across our changing world.
