Juan David Morgan

Panamanian lawyer, businessman and novelist Juan David Morgan talks about his life and work including his novels, The Golden Horse and Between Honour and Sword.

Morgan is the founder of private equity companies including Morgan and Morgan law firm, the MMG Bank and the MMG Trust. He has also written more than a dozen literary works including historical novels, crime fiction, short stories and drama and won national and international awards. He also had a spell as a minister in the Panamanian government in the late 1960s.

His most recent novel is Between Honour and the Sword, an historical novel about the 17th-century privateer Sir Henry Morgan. The story is told through a defamation trial at which Morgan sues two London booksellers over damages to his honour. His rise was down to his battles against the Spanish in the Caribbean and for his capturing and looting of Panama. The Golden Horse is a saga set around the building of the Panama railroad during the California gold rush. It features the rivalry between New York shipping magnates, William Aspinwall and Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the enormous personal cost borne by those constructing the railway.

The event is part of the festival’s programme of Spanish and Latin American literature and culture.