46. Lucy Hughes-Hallett | Bridport Literary Festival | Thursday 12 November 1pm

For two thousand years, Cleopatra has been continually reinvented: medieval emblem of wifely devotion, Renaissance beauty, Romantic femme fatale and Hollywood temptress. Yet these archetypes tell us less about Egypt’s last pharaoh than about the preoccupations, racial politics and erotic fantasies of the cultures that constructed them.

Samuel Johnson Prizewinning biographer Lucy Hughes-Hallett examines the historical monarch alongside her legion of imaginary counterparts. From hostile Roman propaganda to modern pop culture, HughesHallett disentangles the astute political strategist from centuries of myth-making. “Brilliant and discursiveˮ, Antonia Fraser.

Sponsored by Flora Hood

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