Refugee Tales: Volume II is a collection of beautifully written stories, inspired by the experiences of those held in immigration detention and the work of Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group over the last 20 years.

In this country, over 30,000 migrants are held in detention centres every year. Unique within Western Europe, the UK has no maximum time limit on immigration detention; therefore, detention is indefinite and people can be detained for months or even years.

Writers and contributors, Inua Ellams, Ian Duhig, Avril Loveless and Avaes Mohammad, join us to discuss the poignant stories told within this year’s anthology. Written as modern-day counterparts to the pilgrim’s stories in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, this groundbreaking book offers a rare and intimate insight into the lives of the otherwise forgotten.

About The Speakers

Ian Duhig

Former homelessness worker Ian Duhig has won the National Poetry Competition twice and his most recent book, The Blind Roadmaker, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize, as well as being one of the Yorkshire Post’s Yorkshire Books of the Year. He is currently involved with organising poetry workshops with the David Oluwale Memorial Association.

Photo by Paul Madern

Inua Ellams

Born in Nigeria in 1984, Inua Ellams is an internationally touring poet, playwright, performer, graphic artist & designer.  His first play, The 14th Tale, was awarded a Fringe First at the Edinburgh International Theatre. He is currently working on a new play and a poetry pamphlet called #AfterHours.

Avril Loveless

Avril Loveless is a volunteer with the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group, visiting people in immigration detention. She has participated in all three of the Refugee Tales projects since 2015; walking, listening to Tales and raising awareness of the call for an end to indefinite detention. She lives in Brighton.

Avaes Mohammad

Writer and performer Avaes Mohammad regularly engages with themes of science, the socio-political and spirituality. With an upbringing that reverberated with words from the Sufi Saints of South Asia as much as the Dub Poets of Jamaica, his influences have left a permanent hue from which he experiences the sacred and profane alike.

 

About The Chair

Yvette Huddleston

Yvette Huddleston is an author and journalist specialising in the arts. She has written extensively on film, theatre, literature and visual art for a wide range of national and regional publications.