The Story of My Life: Refugees Writing in Oxford
edited by Carole Angier

When I proposed a creative writing class for refugees and asylum seekers in Oxford, I hoped it might help them to exorcise their memories. But some of our meetings were shot through with pain. In one, Ali could not finish his poem about his mother. When Eden wrote about her first months in this country, the recollection overwhelmed her. And when I read back to Filda her account of what happened to her and her daughters at Amuru, her eyes filled with tears. In those moments, expressing their memories made them ‘come back and seize you like a spider,’ as Hassan said; which is why people often stay silent.

ISBN 0954 6342 4 1/9780954 6342 4 7; 96 pp, illustrated; £5.00 softback

Reviews

‘Short, sharp and startling’ – Hilary Spurling, The Guardian Summer Reading