Author Description

Refugees and asylum seekers are rarely out of the headlines or political debate, but only rarely do people in exile have the opportunity to speak for themselves. As well as writers in exile describing their own experience, this collection includes essays by writers about being writers and readers in exile. The causes of exile are manifold, and finding refuge no easy matter. Predrag Finci comments on how many countries he has passed through, whereas his mother-in-law has rarely left home yet the country she has lived in has changed many times. Sousa Jamba, on the other hand, pretends to be from a country other than his own as so few people had heard of his country of origin. As well as Finci and Jamba, many of the writers are known internationally, including Chomon Hardi, Reza Baraheni, Yang Lian, Dubravka Ugresic and the late Miroslav Jancic, for their writing in English. Others, including Maxamad Ibrahim Hadraawi, Ziba Karbassi and Saadi Youssef are appreciated internationally but fairly new to readers of English.