Local Community Experiences of Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey
A Sudden Utterance is the Stranger By Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, University of Oxford Listen here (read by Y. M. Qasmiyeh): I The moon is the birthmark of the refugee. His birth equates to the mauling of his entire body. Nothing is anomalous about the wound. While waiting, we bite our nails and flesh. Once I…
This piece, which is a re-posting from The Oxonion Review, continues our focus on literary translation and displacement. It is the second instalment of our Translation, Poetry and Displacement Series: you can read the other instalments by following the link at the bottom of this page. In this piece, Refugee Hosts Writer in Residence Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, in collaboration with…
This March, the Middle East Studies department at Brown University, Rhode Island is hosting an exhibition - Time Machine: Stereoscopic Views from Palestine, 1900 - that invites spectators to become time travellers. Drawing on 100 images taken in 1900 of Palestine and the surrounding 'Holy Land', the collection - curated by Ariella Azoulay and Issam Nassar…
In this piece, Ufuk Ozturk offers some personal reflections on his experiences working with refugees as a volunteer in Turkey. The following account touches on the roles that language and translation play in enabling not only conversations between cultures, but also insights into one's own personal identity, assumptions and beliefs. Examining such themes, and how…
By Hari Reed, University of East Anglia Prior Meltings Next day Alexandru conjured up himself from sea-rim green. He conjured road, as we all do, in time. I walked behind, blended in to trace his spines, melted into path and paved all myself over. Gently rock hard; melting finger-first like tallow candles, lazy snake…
READ CHAPTER ONE AND TWO. This is the final part of Tahmineh Hooshyar Emami‘s three part re-imagination of the classic children’s story Alice in Wonderland, told from the perspective of Alice the refugee. In this chapter, we learn what has happened to Alice after her journey across the Aegean: this is a moment of confusion and im/mobility. Tahmineh’s piece demonstrates…
In this piece, which is a re-posting from the Asymptote blog, Theophilus Kwek interviews the Refugee Hosts writer in residence Yousif M. Qasmiyeh about his work, and the themes of displacement, exile and belonging that inform his poetry and writing. Read Yousif's poetry for the Refugee Hosts project here. Q&A with Yousif M. Qasmiyeh By…
On 20 February, UCL's Institute of Advanced Studies hosted renowned novelist and critic Prof. Abdulrazak Gurnah to explore the roles of narration and storytelling in the context of migration and displacement (a key theme for our Refugee Hosts project). Abdulrazak Gurnah’s novels – including Memories of Departure (1987), Pilgrims Way (1988), Dottie (1990), Paradise (1994), Admiring Silence (1996),…
The Camp is Time by Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, University of Oxford I Who writes the camp and what is it that ought to be written in a time where the plurality of lives has traversed the place itself to become its own time. II How will the camp stare at itself in the coming time,…
Poetry as a Host By Lyndsey Stonebridge, University of East Anglia Earlier this autumn, I was fortunate enough to watch a film of a young poet recite a new poem. The poet currently lives in Palermo, Sicily, and is a student at a host school teaching young refugees and migrants. He recited his poem at…
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