Jim Haynes established the very first paperback bookshop in Britain; co-produced the 1962 Conference on the Novel and 1963 Drama Conference in Edinburgh – which inspired the current Edinburgh International Book Festival; co-founded the Traverse Theatre, was a catalyst for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, established the London Traverse Theatre Company, co-founded the newspaper I.T., the underground pop club U.F.O., and the London Arts Lab. He taught Media Studies and Sexual Politics at the University of Paris VIII for three decades, co-founded the sexual freedom newspaper Suck, and directed the Wet Dream Film Festival in Amsterdam. In his Paris atelier, he created a salon tradition with open dinners every Sunday evening for some 38 years and over 150,000 guests to date – and counting…
Extract from Jim Haynes’ memoir Thanks for Coming! Encore!, published by Polwarth Publishing, Edinburgh 2014
Photograph by Edouard Golbin
Meeting Jim 