Join us at our monthly meeting today (2pm at Redcliffe Library Meeting Room) as we welcome our internationally renowned guest speaker, historian and author, Professor Marc Serge Rivière.

He will be showcasing his latest publication, True Friendship Knows No Bounds: Extensive Correspondence of Matthew Flinders and Thomi Pitot (1804-1814). An extensive selection of 65 letters, from various provenance, exchanged by Flinders and Pitot over ten years, is presented in this precious annotated edition, to explore the strong bond of friendship, mutual admiration and reverence. Moreover, the regular and lengthy exchange of letters sheds considerable light on the socio-economic and cultural life, the commercial and maritime activities, military on-goings on Isle de France in the last decade of French occupation (1804-1810), including the Battle of Grand Port (August 1810) and the island’s capitulation (December 1810) and the early years of British colonisation.

Serge Rivière has published 38 books and over 70 international articles in refereed Journals and chapters in books on: Voltaire and the 18th century; French and Francophone Literature; the History of Australia, Ireland, Europe and Mauritius; Cultural Studies, and the biographies of great men and women.