Gone To Timbuktu

The acclaimed British artist George Butler draws in situ with pen, ink and watercolour, his travels taking him to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine and more. His reportage illustration is the 'art of travel' at its most urgent — with this conversation zeroing in on the big question: can art make a difference?

An extraordinary desert traveller and social anthropologist bursts all the cliches as she takes us on a journey into the heart of the Sahara to reveal its complex human history. Instead of an imagined city of gold, Judith Scheele reveals something of the real Timbuktu, unpicking the myths and the romance in a discussion based on two decades of field research in Mali, Southern Algeria and Northern Chad.

The German documentary photographer drills into the challenges and opportunities of making work that matters, for the New York Times, New Yorker, ZEIT and more. A fascinating insight into a photographer at the top of the game, working in Siberia, the Arctic, Ukraine, and the fringes of a rapidly changing Europe.

The British author talks about his latest book, Lone Wolf — following in the footsteps of a wolf named Slavc, who crosses the Alps from Slovenia to the Italian Dolomites in search of a mate.

The journalist and biographer Lance Richardson takes on a titan of American literature, Peter Matthiessen — novelist, naturalist, Zen teacher, one-time CIA agent, and author of one of the classic travel books of the 20th century, The Snow Leopard.