Books & Poetry

This new Decibel/Penguin collaboration collects 16 non-fiction pieces from unknown or emerging authors who tackle the multifarious theme of immigration. It’s to the writers’ credit that none of the stories feels cloying or forced, and each has the authentic tincture of a lifetime’s experience. From harrowing accounts of torture in Uganda to moving details of life after World War II, these stories are rooted in a tragic reality, and frequently reflect their authors’ condition of being suspended between states.

Stylistically, the most accomplished piece here belongs to Nimer Rashed, a London-born playwright whose ‘Albert Finney’s Smile’ surges and ebbs with all kinds of possibilities. Essentially the story of his Israeli-Palestinian father’s difficulty procuring work as an actor in London, it speaks volumes about the relationship between immigrants and the west. According to Rashed, his father came seeking the exoticism of ‘Englishness’, only to spend 30 years playing every Middle Eastern stereotype there is. In the end, he states: ‘You reach for the passport, you get it, but by then it’s worthless. It’s not what you aspired to.’

Also worthy of note is Nina Joshi’s ‘A Leaky Roof’, which paints a stark portrait of the poverty and racial abuse her family faced when first moving to the UK from Kenya. After fleeing their country following a violent coup, Joshi’s family settled in a decrepit flat in west London and struggled for years to regain some semblance of cultural and financial stability. It’s an incredibly poignant piece, filtered through the gauze of memory and relayed with dazzling vivacity.

Jade Amoli-Jackson’s ‘My Painful Journey’ is written in a very sparse, simple style but it packs a potent punch. Born in Uganda, Amoli-Jackson details the devastating ordeal she faced in her country after her husband was beheaded by the junta. She lost her entire family within a short period, all the while being subjected to rape and torture. Once in the UK, she received assistance from The Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture who encouraged her to write. In a sense, her story is about the redemptive qualities of writing, and this book, too, is about finding ways to survive the extraordinary.