Saara El-Arifi with Jean Menzies for Cleopatra
Friday 13th March
Pilrig St. Paul's / LARCH, Leith Walk, Edinburgh EH6 5AH
6.30pm
7pm
'Enchanting, smart, and subversive - this is El-Arifi's masterpiece' - R. F. KUANG
It is our great pleasure to welcome Sunday Times Bestseller, Saara El-Arifi, back to Edinburgh for Cleopatra. Saara joins us to talk about her epic and groundbreaking novel, which shows Cleopatra on her own terms.
Saara will be joined by the highly acclaimed Jean Menzies. So come and join us in celebrating the wonderful imagination of Saara El-Arifi!
YOU KNOW MY NAME.
BUT YOU DO NOT KNOW ME.
Your historians call me seductress, but I was ever in love's thrall.
Your playwrights speak of witchcraft, but my talents came from the gods themselves.
Your poets sing of my bloodlust, but I was always protecting my children.
How wilfully they refuse to concede that a woman could be powerful, strategic, divinely blessed to rule.
Death will silence me no longer.
This is not the story of how I died. But how I lived.
SAARA EL-ARIFI is a No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of fantasy and historical fiction. El-Arifi knew she was a storyteller from the moment she told her first lie. Over the years, she has perfected her tall tales into epic ones. She has lived in many countries, had many jobs, and owned many more cats. After a decade of working in marketing and communications, she returned to academia to complete a master's degree in African studies specialising in Cleopatra's myth and her impact on Black women.
Jean Menzies is an author, presenter and ancient historian born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has a PhD in classics and has spent more than a decade creating accessible content online about literature and history. In 2020, she won the BAMB Breakthrough Author award for her first children's non-fiction book, Greek Myths: Meet the Heroes, Gods, and Monsters of Ancient Greece. She has since written and given talks on history and myth for all ages.