When Esa Aldegheri and her husband left their home in Orkney, she didn't know that their eighteen-month motorbike adventure would take them through twenty international frontiers - between Europe and the Middle East, through Pakistan, China and India – many of which are now impassable.
Riding an air-head BMW (which sadly is no longer with us...) her journey created the excellent book 'Free to Go', which is so much more than a travelogue. Charting a story of shrinking and expanding liberties and horizons, of motherhood, xenophobia and changing geopolitical situations, Free to Go examines the challenges of navigating a world where many assume that women only ride pillion, on motorbikes and in relationships.
Esa Aldegheri is a multilingual poet, writer and academic, who has a PhD in Migration Studies. Her poetry has been read on Radio 4 and Radio Scotland and features in several anthologies. She speaks Italian, French, Spanish and Arabic, but don't worry, when she presents her story at The Overland Event she'll be using English!
'Free to Go' was published this summer by John Murray Press.
