Wednesday 8th November - 7.30pm Currie Rugby Club Breakout Room

Allan Little

The State of Play - a Dangerous Game

Allan joined BBC Scotland 40 years ago as a news and current affairs researcher and spent over 30 years with them in a career taking him to Iraq and Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, after which he reported on the break-up of Yugoslavia. Moving to Johannesburg as the BBC’s South Africa correspondent, he reported on the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and the overthrow of President Mobutu in Zaire. While serving as Moscow correspondent he witnessed the democratic revolutions in eastern Europe such as the birth of Czechoslovakia while observing first-hand the chaos of Boris Yeltsin’s tenure. Further stints in Africa and Paris led to his final role as special correspondent reporting on devolution and the Scottish independence referendum, after which he left the BBC to follow his own interests. One of these is chairing the Edinburgh International Book Festival, but he continues to apply his deep knowledge and experience to closely study the state of the world. Allan’s unfailing knack of being the right man in the right place at the right time brings him to the Pentlands Book Festival to give us insights into the matters that matter.