From the author of brother. do. you. love. me. comes a new story of human connection, nature’s gifts and the power of love – in all its forms.

Manni Coe came to us at BridLit back in 2022 with his brother, Reuben  to tell us about their memoir.

Reuben, then aged 38, had been living in a home providing specialised care for adults with learning disabilities.

For months, Reuben, who has Down Syndrome, had been non-verbal, cut off from everyone he loved. In despair, he sent his older brother a text message: ‘brother. do. you. love. me.’

Immediately, Manni left his home in Spain, took Reuben out of care and moved them both into a cottage in the countryside where they discovered how to rebuild the bonds of brotherhood.

Their appearance at BridLit left a lasting impression on the audience, exploring how, through their story, how we can all take better care of each other.

For his new memoir, Little Ruins: Rebuilding a Life, Manni goes back to a previous chapter when he and his partner, Jack, bought a crumbling but beautiful old farmstead tucked into a remote valley in Andalusia and lived there with Rueben.

Despite the idyllic surroundings, Manni begins to realise that the scars from his childhood might not have healed at all, and a single and terrible event threatens everything the three of them have spent so long building together.

Little Ruins is described as a heart-mending exploration of human connection, nature’s gifts and the power of love in all its forms.

He’ll be in conversation with Jason Webster in the Bull Ballroom on Tuesday 4 November at 6,30pm.

To book tickets, contact Bridport Tourist Information Centre on 01308 424901.

Manni, who is this year’s Bridport Prize memoir judge, will also be with us earlier in the week when he will be talking to a previous Bridport Prize winner, Joanne Briggs, about her astonishing new book, The Scientist Who Wasn’t There: A True Story of Staggering Deception.

The book is about her late father, renowned scientist Professor Michael Briggs – space expert at NASA, adviser to the World Health Organisation, successful Big Pharma executive – who fell from grace amid a scandal which broke in 1986.

This special event is being staged in conjunction with The Bridport Prize and is at the Bull Ballroom on Monday 3 November at 8pm.

Tickets from Bridport TIC on 01308 424901.