Best-selling author, broadcaster, award-winning performer and former Monty Python member, Michael Palin comes to Christchurch to talk about Brazil. He has undertaken another of his celebrated journeys, travelling from the lost world of Amazonia to the buzzing metropolis of Rio de Janeiro, to meet the people and visit the places that shape this nation.
Brazil is one of the four new global super powers with its vast natural resources and burgeoning industries, half a continent in size and a potent mix of races, religions and cultures, of unexplored wildernesses and bustling modern cities. In a companion book to his new series for the BBC, Brazil, Michael Palin explores in his inimitable way this vast and disparate nation. His journey allows him to reach a kaleidoscopic mix of peoples: the indigenous hunter-gatherers of the interior, the descendants of African slaves with their vibrant culture of rituals and festivals and music, the large community of German descent who celebrate their patrimony at the biggest beer festival outside Munich, and the wealthy guachas of the Pantanal amongst them.
Michael Palin is one of the most popular comic figures of our time. His exploits with the Monty Python team and in subsequent films such as A Fish Called Wanda are now the stuff of legend. It is as the adventurous traveller of his major television series however that he has acquired a vast and loyal following. He is also an author of fiction with his latest novel, The Truth, published in July this year.