Alan Riding

Doctor of Letters

Tuesday 19 July 2022 - Orator: Professor Martin Hurcombe 

Listen to full oration and honorary speech on Soundcloud

Pro-Vice Chancellor

We live in highly polarised times marked by what commentators refer to as culture wars. It’s an age where people seem less willing to tolerate difference or to even listen to one another; and where many prefer to spend time within the echo chamber of their own views, unchallenged by the complexity of what may actually lie beyond the virtual four walls of social media.

It is not surprising that universities sometimes find themselves a target in such an environment. Although sometimes labelled ivory towers, universities actively encourage a life-long curiosity about and engagement with the world around us. This may be by directly addressing real-world problems. In the case of Modern Languages, it is through understanding cultures, languages and histories from around the globe, entering into dialogue with them, and building bridges between them.

Alan Riding’s career from journalist to author reflects the globalised trajectory that a Bristol degree offers. As an unabashed global citizen, Alan reveals a keen analytical eye and a thorough understanding of the cultures and countries in which he has lived and worked.

I first met Alan in 2013, shortly after the publication of And the Show Went On, his book on cultural life in Nazi-occupied Paris, the city where he has lived for over thirty years. Alan was born in Brazil, where he became fluent in several languages. We owe his decision to come to study at Bristol, however, to his lack of ability in Latin, then a requirement for entry to Oxford and Cambridge. Although a student of economics, a subject he didn’t really want to study, Alan maintained his interest in Latin American culture by studying optional units in the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies.

After graduating, he followed his long-term ambition to become a journalist, securing his first post in the late 1960s with Reuters. Based in New York, he covered the United Nations, which offered a window on the world and all its problems. Here he met his wife, the journalist Marlise Simons. Alan’s expertise in international affairs was put to further use in 1971 when, after a stint in Buenos Aires, he moved to Mexico to work as a freelance reporter.

This was a dangerous time to be a journalist in Central America. A dirty war was being waged between military dictatorships and left-wing groups. Despite being seen as a pinko liberal (his words), Alan managed to negotiate his way between both sides without falling victim to either. Others of his profession were less fortunate.

Following more than a decade of cutting-edge journalism on Central America, in 1981 he was awarded the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for Latin American Coverage, one of the oldest awards in journalism presented to those who have made a significant contribution to inter-American understanding. His 1984 book, Distant Neighbors: A Portrait of the Mexicans, continued in this vein, challenging preconceptions of Mexico, and seriously annoying the Mexican government. Their reaction, Alan claims with characteristic modesty, inadvertently helped turn it into an international bestseller.

By now Alan and Marlise had returned to Brazil, where, as bureau chief for The New York Times, Alan covered several South American countries’ transition to full democracy. Here too Alan is modest, downplaying the cloak-and-dagger efforts needed to talk to the Shining Path guerrillas in Peru, for example. And he still hasn’t told me how exactly he incurred the wrath of the Venezuelan President’s wife, so much so that he was unable to return there. When you talk to Alan about this time, he never makes himself the hero of the story; rather, he focuses on the people and the issues so as to further our understanding of them.

After returning to Europe in 1989, Alan settled in Paris where he turned his attention to what had first drawn him to the study of languages at Bristol: culture. Originally named The New York Times’ Paris bureau chief, covering European affairs, in 1995, he reinvented himself as European Cultural Correspondent. At the same time, he was able to devote himself to his second career: writing books. With Leslie Dunton-Downer, he co-authored The Essential Shakespeare Handbook, the first in the series by educational publishers DK. There followed a second on opera, another of Alan’s great passions. In 2011 And the Show Went On was awarded the Palau I Fabre International Non-Fiction Prize. Still showing no signs of retiring, Alan has also recently written his first play, Traitor(s).

Reinvention and an intellectual curiosity for other peoples and cultures are, then, two key features of Alan’s journey since graduation. They have guided him across three continents and will, I am sure, guide many of you graduating today in the choices you make as you leave Bristol.

Pro Vice-Chancellor, I present to you Alan John Riding as eminently worthy of the degree of Doctor of Letters honoris causa.