Tourist Board announces two more Literary Festival authors

The Gibraltar Tourist Board has announced speakers Rob Henderson and Paul Pettitt for this year’s edition of the Gibunco Gibraltar Literary Festival.

The Literary Festival will take place later this year from November 11 to 17.

“I’m delighted to announce these next authors in the line-up for the 2024 edition of the Gibunco Gibraltar Literary Festival,” the Minister for Tourism, Christian Santos, said.

“Each year the Literary Festival is a highlight of Gibraltar’s cultural calendar, and 2024 promises to be no different.”

Rob Henderson will deliver a 45-minute presentation on his first book ‘Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class’, a national bestseller in the US.

Mr Henderson grew up in foster homes in Los Angeles and the rural town of Red Bluff, California.

He joined the US Air Force at the age of 17.

After his enlistment, he graduated from Yale University with a BS in psychology and was subsequently awarded a Gates Cambridge Scholarship.

Once described as “self-made” by the New York Times, Mr Henderson earned a PhD in psychology from the University of Cambridge.

His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Boston Globe, among other outlets, and he has appeared on many popular podcasts, including Honestly with Bari Weiss, The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, and Modern Wisdom.

His Substack newsletter is sent each week to more than 60,000 subscribers.

Paul Pettitt will deliver a PowerPoint-illustrated talk, drawing on 25 years’ experience as a Palaeolithic archaeologist.

Focusing on his research, detailed in his book Homo Sapiens Rediscovered: The Scientific Revolution Rewriting Our Origins, Paul will illustrate the Ice Age life of Homo sapiens ancestors and present an up-to-date summary of the human species’ biological and behavioural evolution.

Mr Pettitt is Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at Durham University, UK.

He has degrees from the Universities of Birmingham, London and Cambridge, at the latter researching Neanderthal behaviour in Southwest France for his PhD.

He was Senior Archaeologist at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Fellow and Tutor in Archaeology and Anthropology at Keble College, Oxford, and Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader in Palaeolithic Archaeology at Sheffield University before taking up his Durham chair in 2013.

He researches the behaviour of the Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens in Europe, specialising in the treatment of the dead and the emergence of art.

He is currently excavating a campsite of Upper Palaeolithic mammoth hunters in Moldova and researching aspects of the visual psychology underpinning Palaeolithic art.