Tom Michell: 'The Penguin Lessons' (in conversation with Suzanne Hargreaves)

Bude Lit Fest is thoroughly delighted to welcome Tom to Bude to recount this truly remarkable story, which is about to be released as a major film.

Presented by: Bude Literary Festival (Patron: Raynor Winn: 'The Salt Path')

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0	BUDE: The Parkhouse Centre
P	Saturday 17th May, 2025
N	3:30pm

Event information

The extraordinary tenacity with which Juan Salvador the penguin clung to life, and his determination to survive the catastrophic oil spill that killed thousands of other birds, was a defining characteristic.
It was with equal determination that, after Tom Michell found him, cleaned him, and tried to return him to the sea, he refused to go, electing instead to stay with his rescuer and gave Tom no alternative but to smuggle him back to Argentina.
Such was Juan Salvador's zest for life that he came to befriend all of the staff and students at St George's College, Buenos Aires, where Tom taught, making a difference to so many lives in the dark and dangerous days of the fascist military dictatorship of the time.
That Juan Salvador, as the subject of Tom's book, should have been so celebrated can be no surprise, and his story has been translated into 24 other languages, featured as an audio book read by Bill Nighy, been incorporated into the national curriculum of South Korea and been used by Cambridge University International GCSE exams board on two occasions.
Now a big budget film about him, starring Steve Coogan and Sir Jonathan Pryce, is due for release in the UK on 18th April, followed by showings all around the world.