Big Writing for a Small World

On Thursday March 24th we launched the fifth anthology of poetry by participants in writing workshops funded and run by English PEN. It was an electrifying evening of work by participants from all over the world.

In my group we had people from the Ukraine, Gambia, DRC, Cameroon, Pakistan, Uganda, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Jamaica and the Phillipines. Few of them had written poetry before and many were struggling with English as a second language. All of our participants were migrants, refugees, asylum seekers or undocumented, trying to establish a foothold in London and make a new life for themselves. Many people came with very difficult stories of why they had left their homes, families, children, farms and businesses behind. Some people have been here for many years with still no hope of being granted the right to stay. But everyone said that they had come to the workshop to write down their stories, to improve their English and to meet other people.

Today is a glorious day
today is me on the rota
today is a lovely breakfast 
today is Crust Day.
by Maggie

When I sit in my garden
and see the flower
beautiful to see
they take my worries away.
by Nanette

Our students bravely stood up and read their poetry out at the launch, telling us how they had never ever dreamed that one day they would see their writing published and have a chance to read it to an audience. The atmosphere in the room veered from laughter to tears as the writers read us their amazing work.

Yaya Yosof attended a PEN workshop with me over a year ago, he has continued to attend our workshops and one run by the Poetry School, sponsored by PEN. Yosof writes, What a delight it is/
To walk on the rain/ Clouds are your umbrellas/......

Lizzie Mendy-Thomas came to my workshop clearly already an experienced and committed writer.
Here is the opening of her poem about water :-

The PEN Readers and Writers Committee is chaired by Lindsey Mackie

Philip Cowell is responsible for administering the programme, raising funds, finding projects to work with and then liaising with tutors.

On this set of workshops the tutors were myself, Malika Booker, Nii Parkes and Shazea Quraishi. We each ran an 8 week course. My workshops took place at PRAXIS a project based in the East End to support migrants and asylum seekers all over London. I was also lucky to have a volunteer, Pat Hicks, who was invaluable to all of us each week on the sessions.

I read a poem by Tesfu, who sadly did not continue with the sessions. Here is the opening of his poem about food.

I hungered for plenty

you were little and never enough.

Drought and war made you scarce.

You appeared for lunch

then disappeared for a day or two,

you made me cry and happy,

your lack made me slim.

your plenty made me fat and miserable.

At the end of our 8 week sessions Jacqueline said to me, "You have taken us from sad to positive!" It was a very powerful moment. Everyone took photos and went home with their folder of work and a certificate of attendance, sad that we were not continuing but positive and happy with everything they had achieved. Their words had been heard, written down and affirmed, they had made new friends and extended their English.

I do hope that many of our participants continue with their writing and attend more courses. Philip is currently raising further funds and planning to extend this fantastic programme even further. We all wish him every success and look forward to taking part again. All our words resonate across the world.

Writers making the world legible

Imagine trying to write a book in Arabic or Cantonese and your mother tongue is firmly English. This is what it is like for writers who are forced into exile. Not only must they learn a new language but if they cannot suppress their desire to write then they must also try to create fiction in their adopted language.
Once the book is written, what chance of translation into English? Only 3% of the 150,000 or so books published in Britain each year are literary translations.
 English PEN's remit since its foundation in 1921 has been to "give a voice to the voiceless." This year The Writers' in Translation programme is celebrating its fifth year of supporting authors, especially raising the profile of authors at risk.

Amanda Hopkinson, Professor of Translation at the University of East Anglia and founder chair of Writers in Translation, stressed the importance of this work at an event for two supported PEN writers, Eli Amir and Atiq Rahimi, in the Islington Waterstones in June. Amanda told the audience that the writers of the first two books which were translated have been killed since publication. In many parts of the world it is a dangerous occupation being a writer.

Atiq Rahimi, pictured here with his translator flew in specially from Paris for events this week. Originally from Afghanistan he was exiled to France and wrote his novel,The Patience Stone, in French. Atiq told us that writing in French was very liberating. "Language is like a skin. Living in exile away from your own country, language becomes an obsession." Atiq's novel challenges the taboos around women in Afghani society He is not readily accepted into the Afghani exiled community in Paris, let alone in his home country. "I know I cause pain when I write of these matters but a writer must challenge the edges of received views."

Eli Amir was born in Baghdad into the Iraqi Jewish community. As a teenager he went into exile with over 90% of his community who all left within a year, "unprecedented in the history of refugees," Eli told us. "Only one place would take us, Israel." He went on to become a ministerial adviser on Arab affairs and immigrant absorption.
 Eli's first language is Judeo-Arabic and he only "technically" wrote his novels in Hebrew. He heard the book in Arabic in his head, in the voices of his mother and father arguing in Arabic and so in his novels, "I wrote down what they said."

In The Dove Flyer Eli Amir recreates Baghdad in the 1940s. He describes a society in chaos, as if in the middle of an earthquake and everyone has a dream. But ultimately like the wings of a dove the dreams of the main characters are broken as they go into exile. "I write to show the pain, the sorrow, the insult of losing a homeland,"  says Amir.The Dove Flyer is the first in a trilogy about the interface between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East. Eli feels that The Dove Flyer will help people to understand what erupted in Iraqi society in the 1940s. "I could smell it in the air. Within 10 years all the leadership was gone." The Jewish community was forced into exile. "The difference between Atiq and me," Eli told the audience," is that he has the privilege now to visit Afghanistan. I cannot return to Baghdad because I am the enemy. They will kill me."
I have published a more extensive interview with Eli Amir which you can read here.

So what is it like to experience your work in different languages?
Atiq told us, "Language remains a mystery." His choice of language has a huge impact on the rhythm of his work. For this new novel he chose French over Persian for just that reason.
Eli was asked in Germany, "How did you feel hearing you book read in German?"
He smiled and said, "In my left ear was German, in my right ear was Arabic, my father's voice and I followed in my Hebrew version of the book from right to left."
Ultimately Eli wrote his book so that his children will know where he came from and also so that they would understand their grandparents background. "I wanted to recreate the city of my childhood which I loved so much and to keep it with me so I can hang it at night like I hang the book," he said.

Leila Kogba, Director of Strategy and Partnerships in Islington, introduced the evening which was a part of Refugee Week.Herself a refugee from the Biafran War she said that she had never thought of herself as a refugee until she read about the war in  Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie. "Writing is the most powerful way to tell a story," she said.

English PEN has produced a marvellous book, Making the World Legible, to mark five years of Writers in Translation with extracts from all the writers. You can download the book here.

Writers in Translation is a powerful force for good in the world.
                     Andrew Motion


A vibrant border-crossing revelation of contemporary international literature...what writing is all about.
                    Ali Smith


What a wonderful and indispensable project this is.
                 Amit Chaudhuri


How can there be peace without us knowing each other? 
                  Eli Amir speaking in Cairo.


Listen to a radio interview with Eli Amir.

Mightier than the sword.

English PEN, 'mightier than the sword' promotes literature and human rights, defending the rights of persecuted writers around the world, as well as working with different groups in the UK. Recently PEN has focused some of its energies and funds towards working with refugees and asylum seekers, to support their development as writers. As a writer I can think of nothing more frustrating than being forced into exile, losing my language and my ability to communicate through my pen.

PEN has been running a series of creative writing workshops in the past year for refugees and asylum seekers, as well as migrant workers and I have had the privilege of tutoring some of the groups. Writing in English and not one's mother tongue presents linguistic, practical and emotional issues to the writers. Many of the participants in these workshops and those I have been involved with in other settings, are already published and recognised novelists, poets, journalists and playwrights in their own countries, in their mother-tongue. But now they must start all over again, not only mastering a new language, but trying to engage with the tricky UK publishing industry.

Some of the participants have been persecuted as writers in their own countries and have been forced to flee. This is the background to one particular writer, Stephanie Ndoungo. Stephanie is from Cameroon and her mother-tongue is French. As a law student in her home country she took on journalism to fund her studies. Unfortunately she fell foul of the authorities and was forced to flee. She arrived in England in 2003 and sought asylum. Little did she know it would take almsot 7 years and many weary applications to the Home Office before she would be given refugee status and indefinite leave to remain. Stephanie has not seen her family since she fled Cameroon and only has telephone contact.

I met Stephanie on the Write to Life programme at the Medical Foundation. Stephanie was keen to work on poetry with me. Some of Stephanie's poems have been published in the anthologies of the Write to Life programme, such as the example below. Stephanie has also read her work at book festivals around the country.

In January 2010 Stephanie was invited to attend a training day run by English PEN to develop their work with refugee and asylum seekers attending PEN workshops. I was asked to interview Stephanie and open up her story to the group. Stephanie gave us an extraordinary insight into the experiences of being an asylum seeker in England, arriving with no resources, no support and almost no English. Initially Stephanie could not find a Cameroon community and was supported by a Congolese charity. This meant she could at least use her French but she still felt cut off from her own community. It was very difficult to find others from the Cameroon in London.
Stephanie told us how in those early years her life felt like " a waiting game." Waiting for the post, waiting for her court dates, waiting for another interview. She was expected to tell her story over and over again and had to make sure the details did not change. Time passed, another year in her life and another request for new evidence to corroborate her story. But how could she constantly nag friends and family back home for more and more documents?

Stephanie wrote the poem, MY SOIL, ( see above) when she was feeling homesick for her country, her family and her friends. She had brought so little with her.
Except for these dried seed pods.

Writing poetry opened a door for Stephanie and gave her a chance to express herself in a different way. "Writing poetry about yourself," she says, "is more difficult than journalism. You are not always aware before you write, what is actually on your mind. It is difficult to open your life to others in this way." Writing poetry, attending workshops and sharing writing with others for Stephanie has been " part of the healing process."

Being an asylum seeker is to live a life of very restricted choices. You can't work or even volunteer, you can't do an ESOL course to improve your English, you can't shop where you want. For Stephanie and so many others like her, you move from being an independent professional person to complete dependence on the system. "Being an asylum seeker can become an excuse not do things. Its very difficult to meet people and that's where the workshops were so good, " says Stephanie. "I met my first friend from Cameroon in a workshop."

And then the great day comes when finally you are awarded refugee status. There is no warning. A letter suddenly arrives from the Home Office and your life is turned upside down.

We had a special cake on the Write to Life programme to celebrate and there were many mixed feelings around the room, from those who had already achieved the same status and those still waiting, sometimes for years. But once the initial joy subsides, then a whole new set of problems start. "You have no preparation for getting refugee status," Stephanie says."There is no support system, no funding for education. Now you are faced with a whole new set of choices and its scary."

But Stephanie is a very determined person. She has committed herself to the country which took her in and gave a new chance at life, the country which introduced her to 'Only Fools and Horses, 'Yes Minister' and all the different accents and dialects in the English language which she loves. She has enrolled on a Social Work course and is determined to become a professional worker in London, looking forward to the day when she can buy her own flat and make a home for herself and her four year old son, Trevor.

"What I love about poetry," says Stephanie, " is that you can say so much in so few words."
Our experience of listening to Stephanie's story on our training day has given us new insight into life as an asylum seeker and the deep needs of writers trying to express themselves in their adopted language, dislocated from their home and their country.

The work of English PEN in providing this group the opportunity to develop their writing is an essential part of their work in our time.