Miek Zwamborn & Michele Hutchison

This video is available on our West Cork Literary Festival youtube channel. Click here to watch 

Seaweed is so familiar and yet its names – pepper dulse, sea lettuce, bladderwrack – are largely unknown to us. In The Seaweed Collector’s Handbook, this short, exquisitely illustrated portrait, the Dutch poet and artist Miek Zwamborn shares her discoveries of its history, culture and use, from the Neolithic people of the Orkney Islands to sushi artisans in modern Japan. Seaweed troubled Columbus on his voyages across the Atlantic, intrigued von Humboldt in the Sargasso Sea and inspired artists from Hokusai to Matisse. Covering seaweed’s collection by Victorians, its adoption into fashion and dance and its potential for combating climate change, and with a fabulous series of recipes based around the ‘truffles of the sea’, this is a wonderful gift for every nature lover’s home. The Seaweed Collector’s Handbook is translated into English by Michele Hutchison and in this event we hear from both the writer and the translator.