Peter Florence

Peter Florence, MBE (born 4 October 1964), is a British festival director, most notable for founding the Hay Festival with his father and mother, Norman and Rhoda Florence, funding the first festival with winnings from a poker game.

Peter Florence was educated at Ipswich School, Jesus College, Cambridge, and the University of Paris and has an MA in Modern and Medieval Literatures. He holds honorary doctorates from The Open University and The University of Glamorgan, and is a Fellow of Hereford College of Arts, The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and the British-American Project, and an Honorary Fellow of Bangor University and of Cardiff University.

He was made a "Colombiano de Corazon" by President Álvaro Uribe for his work in Colombia.

As well as the Hay Festival, Florence founded similar festivals in Mantua, Segovia, the Alhambra Palace, Cartagena, Nairobi, Zacatecas, Thiruvananthapuram, Dhaka, Xalapa, Belfast and Paraty.

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