{"id":101042,"date":"2026-04-27T11:03:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T15:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/?post_type=cu_story&p=101042"},"modified":"2026-04-27T11:03:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T15:03:40","slug":"julian-hoffman-prespa-greece-book","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/julian-hoffman-prespa-greece-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Carleton Alum Writes Beautiful Books About Our Shared World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n\n \n \n \n \n
\n\n
<\/div>\n \n
\n
\n\n

\n Carleton Alum Writes Beautiful Books About Our Shared World\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

Throughout his life, Julian Hoffman<\/a> has found himself at a crossroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearing the end of high school in the suburbs east of Toronto, he saw rock band guitarist as his career path but applied to university as a backup plan. Hoffman decided to study English<\/a> at Carleton University<\/a> because devouring books and writing \u2014 song lyrics, science fiction, “dreadful poetry” \u2014 was his other creative love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years later, seeking direction at the Dalai Lama’s spiritual hub in the Himalayas, he literally came to a fork in the road while walking. One way led back to the classroom where he planned to continue his Buddhist teachings; the other way headed into the forest, where he had become entranced by all the exotic, vibrant birds spilling out of trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Author
Carleton University alum and author Julian Hoffman holds up his book Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hoffman chose nature. “Something fundamental had shifted within me,” he recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n

“For the rest of my time in India, I explored the mountains and all the wild species there. I realized that the living world was the home I’d been looking for.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In 2000, working as a painter in London, England, disillusioned with long commutes and the big city, Hoffman and his then partner and now wife Julia Henderson cracked open a book about Prespa in northern Greece and decided to move to the region sight unseen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prespa, the focus of the Carleton graduate and award-winning author’s latest book, is a crossroads as well. It’s where three countries \u2014 Albania, North Macedonia and Greece \u2014 meet around a pair of ancient lakes, the Mediterranean world pushing up into the Balkans. It’s also a geological transition zone, limestone on the west side of the lakes and granite to the east, which brings thousands of species together in a single watershed.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n

“All these different peoples, habitats, languages, ethnicities, religions, and political and economic histories are folded together in Prespa,” says Hoffman.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

“One of the great stories of this place is how porous, in many respects, borders actually are.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n