Marjorie Lotfi – The Wrong Person to Ask
We can't wait to launch Marjorie Lotfi's brilliant debut poetry collection, The Wrong Person to Ask, when she joins us in the bookshop in October. She will be joined by fellow poets still to be announced for an evening of performance and conversation about the collection. Join us for what's sure to be a wonderful launch event!
This event will take place in the bookshop with an in-person audience, as well as a livestream for attendees watching from home. There will be a signing after the event.
In-person vouchers can be redeemed on the night of the event against a single copy of The Wrong Person to Ask – we will have a list of attendees with vouchers to be redeemed. Please note that only one voucher can be redeemed per book. Livestream vouchers are valid until the day after the event and can be used on the website against the price of The Wrong Person to Ask.
About The Wrong Person to Ask:
Marjorie Lotfi’s award-winning debut collection is a book of two halves, each a meditation on the idea of home, both the places we start and end up in our lives. Spanning a childhood in Iran dislocated by revolution, through years as a young woman in America, to her current home in Scotland, these poems ask what it means to come from somewhere else, what we carry with us when we leave, and how we land in a new place and finally come to rest.
‘The Wrong Person to Ask by Marjorie Lotfi is a wondrous treasure – elegant poems of great tenderness and detail, vivid in heart and imagery, mesmerising in power. Whole worlds and people shimmer alive through scenes and stories of exile, departure, arrival, but most importantly, clear witness and remembrance. A deeply honouring book fully built of love.’ – Naomi Shihab Nye
Please note: Tickets for our events are non-refundable. Professional photography and videography may take place during this event. Thank you for your understanding.
Participants:
Marjorie Lotfi Author
Marjorie Lotfi was born in New Orleans, moved to Tehran as a baby with her American mother and Persian father, and fled Iran with one suitcase and an hour’s notice during the Iranian Revolution. She lived in different parts of the US before moving to the UK in 1999, and in Scotland in 2005. Her pamphlet Refuge, poems about her childhood in revolutionary Iran, was published by Tapsalteerie Press in 2018. She was one of the three winners of the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize in 2021, and her first book- length collection, The Wrong Person to Ask, is published by Bloodaxe Books in 2023. She has been the Poet in Residence at Jupiter Artland, Spring Fling and the Wigtown Book Festival, and was commissioned to write Pilgrim, a sequence about migration between Iran and the US, for the St Magnus Festival on Orkney, and by the University of Edinburgh to write a European/ female/migration counterpart, some of which appears in The Wrong Person to Ask. She also founded the Belonging Project involving refugees with over 1,500 participants across Scotland, and is a co-founder and Director of the charity Open Book. She is an Ignite Fellow with the Scottish Book Trust, one of the 12 Collective of women writers, co-editor of New Writing Scotland, and chair of the board of StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival.
The venue
The Portobello Bookshop
46 Portobello High Street
Edinburgh
EH15 1DA
Telephone: 0131 629 6756
Website: www.theportobellobookshop.com
Wheelchair Access
We have a ramp at the front of the shop which has a ratio of 1:10 and loading capacity of 300kg, and so should be able to be used by most wheelchair users or those with mobility vehicles. The front doors are fully automated. Our shop interior is designed to allow access throughout for wheelchair users and prams, though please note there is only 700mm wide clearance to access the staff toilet.
Sound
We use a PA system to enhance the audio at our live events. We also have a hearing loop system installed, if you’d like to use our loop system during an event please let us know and we’ll make sure we have it set up and connected to the live audio feed during the event. If you wish to attend an event and require BSL interpretation, please give us a few weeks notice and we’ll do our best to arrange an interpreter.