JIM POTTS, OBE, was Director of the British Council in
Sweden
(2000-2004). He worked for the British Council for 35
years, from
1969-2004, and served in many different countries in
many different
roles (Cultural Attaché and Director in Prague
and Stockholm,
film-maker and TV producer in Ethiopia and Kenya, Regional
Director
in Northern Greece and cultural relations practitioner
in Australia,
where he served for seven years as British Council Director,
based in
Sydney). He was Head of East and Central Europe Department
when
he worked at Council Headquarters in London. He is the
co-editor,
with Judith Black, of the anthology Swedish Reflections,
from
Beowulf to Bergman (Arcadia, London, 2003). He
played a leading
role in some ground-breaking cultural relations and public
diplomacy
campaigns such as the 1997 “New Images, Australia and
Britain into
the 21st Century”, “New Wales in New South Wales”, “Scotland
in
Sweden”, “British Design Season”, “UK Country of
Honour and
British Literature Focus” at the 2004 Gothenburg Book
Fair, as well
as helping to initiate the Literary Links touring exhibition
and related
book (Roslyn Russell, Allen and Unwin, 1997), which celebrated
the
literary relationship between Australia and Britain.
Jim is the author of The Ionian Islands and Epirus,
A Cultural
History (Signal Books, Oxford, and OUP, USA, 2010).
Jim studied English Literature at Oxford University (Wadham
College)
and Film-Making at Bristol University. In the course
of his career he
has made educational and documentary films (such as “The
Cross,
Art-Form of Ethiopia", available on YouTube,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0N3nJ6AlYg).
Jim's blog (corfublues.blogspot.com), which covers international
cultural, literary, environmental and political topics,
is widely read.
He has written articles for various publications. Some
of his poems
have been published in Greek, Czech (“16 Poems”, Prague,
1989),
Romanian and Swedish. He has lectured on Greek poetry
and history,
and on English poetry and the visual arts (eg Art and
the Dorset
Landscape).
Recent publications include chapters about Greece in Travel,
Tourism
and Identity (ed. Gabriel R. Ricci, 2015), and
in The Ionian Islands,
Aspects of their History and Culture (ed. Anthony
Hirst and Patrick
Sammon, 2014).
Jim has produced several blues CDs of his own, and assisted
the
American producer Christopher King on two recent CDs
of
field-recordings of traditional Epirot Music, issued
on the JSP label.
Jim lives in Dorset, England, and is married to the Corfiot
novelist
and short-story writer, Maria Strani-Potts.
Jim and Maria were two of the three co-editors of the
anthology
Dorset Voices: A Collection of New Prose, Poetry and
Photography (Foreword: HRH The Prince of
Wales, Roving Press, 2012).
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