Rights to Shafik Meghji’s new book has gone to Hurst Publishers.
A captivating blend of travel writing, history and reportage, Small Earthquakes: Exploring Britain’s Lost History in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay journeys from the Atacama Desert to Tierra del Fuego, Easter Island to South Georgia, exploring Britain’s forgotten connections with this part of South America.
Drawing on 15 years of experience of living, working and travelling across South America for DK Eyewitness, Lonely Planet, the BBC and Rough Guides, award-winning journalist, travel writer and author Shafik unearths a shared history featuring nitrate kings and tech utopians, footballers and pirates, polar explorers and freedom fighters, cowboys and missionaries.
Small Earthquakes will reveal how these three countries have shaped Britain in profound and unexpected ways, including a meatpacking plant in Fray Bentos that changed the way the world eats and a Buenos Aires waterworks that triggered a London banking crisis. And it explores how they provided an escape for everyone from Welsh nonconformists dreaming of a new life in Patagonia to gold miners seeking their fortunes in
some of the harshest conditions imaginable.
Meghji’s first book, Crossed Off the Map: Travels in Bolivia (Latin America Bureau, 2022), was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year and named one of the travel books of 2022 by the Washington Post, National Geographic Traveller and Wanderlust.
He has co-authored over 45 guidebooks for respected publishers like Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, and DK Eyewitness and his writing has been featured in prominent publications including BBC Travel, National Geographic Traveller, and The Guardian. His work has been recognised with numerous awards, including accolades from the Travel Media Awards, British Guild of Travel Writers Awards, and Freelance Writing Awards. He was shortlisted for Travel Journalist of the Year at the British Journalism Awards in 2022 and 2023.
Cull & Co. Literary Agency Ltd 