Michael Palin

Michael Palin found fame as a member of the much-adored Monty Python. Since then, he's starred in films such as The Death of Stalin and several much-acclaimed travel documentaries, which have taken him to the North and South Poles, the Sahara Desert, the Himalayas, Eastern Europe and Brazil.

His books include accounts of his journeys, two novels (Hemingway's Chair and The Truth), four volumes of diaries and Erebus, the Story of a Ship. From 2009 to 2012 he was president of the Royal Geographical Society. He received a BAFTA fellowship in 2013, and a knighthood in the 2019 New Year Honours list.

Join us to celebrate his latest book, in which Palin travels to Venezuela to get a sense of what life is like in one of South America's most culturally rich, vibrant, but also troubled nations. In the journal he kept during his trip in February 2025, Palin gives a vivid account of the towns and cities he visited, the landscapes he travelled through, and the people he met.

Illustrated throughout with colour photographs taken on the trip, and permeated with his warmth and humour, this is a vivid and varied portrait of a complex country.