The story of my life: refugees writing in Oxford

The Charlbury Press, Oxfordshire, 2005, 95pp, rrp £5

This small book of poems and prose is the product of an unusual creative writing class – one that was put on especially for refugees and asylum seekers living in Oxford. The teacher thought the class might help these newcomers to Britain exorcise their memories and tell the rest of us what they had been through. For many, the recalling of their memories was almost unbearably painful. But as the classes continued the students discovered that while writing about their experiences made them no easier to bear, their stories and poems became objects of value in their own right. Although English was not the native tongue of any of these writers, they soon stopped being happy to use just any word; they had to find the best.

Four of the seven authors came from Africa. They write movingly of their childhoods and the lives they have left behind, but also of their thoughts and feelings as they adjust to life in Oxford. It is often not a happy experience. Filda Otunnu reflects in her poem 'What is it like to live here?' on how she's been on all the training courses but struggles to find a job, and it reminds her of the many times back in Uganda when she tilled and sowed the land but just as she was about to reap, her harvest was taken from her. In 'Secretary' Eden Habtemichael writes of sitting outside her solicitor's office listening to his secretary talking to the waiting clients as though she was 'policeman and lawyer, judge and jury'. But they also write with beauty and simplicity about their lives turning around and what love means to them.

The proceeds from the sale of this book go to Asylum Welcome, the charity that commendably organised the writing classes. It would be good to see refugees given further opportunities to express their own voices – and for us to hear them.

* Reviewed by Shereen Karmali, Fahamu.