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Seventy years after the adoption of the 1951 Refugee Convention, the UK is guilty of undermining the very principles of asylum, inhumanely detaining those seeking protection and ushering in sweeping changes that threaten to punish refugees at every turn. But the UK's immigration system is not alone in committing such breaches of human rights. The fourth volume of
Refugee Tales explores our present international environment, combining author re-tellings with first-hand accounts of individuals who have been detained across the world. As the coronavirus pandemic defies borders--leaving those who are detained even more vulnerable--this collection shares stories spanning Canada, Greece, Italy, Switzerland, and the UK, and calls for international insistence on a future without detention. Featuring a prologue by Baroness Shami Chakrabarti.
About the author
David Herd is a poet, critic, and teacher. His collections of poetry include
All Just (Carcanet 2012),
Outwith (Bookthug 2012), and
Through (Carcanet 2016), and his recent writings on the politics of human movement have appeared in
Los Angeles Review of Books, Parallax, and
Almost Island. He is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Kent, has worked with Kent Refugee Help since 2009, and is a coordinator of
Refugee Tales.
Anna Pincus, a founder and co-ordinator of
Refugee Tales, has worked for Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group for ten years supporting people held in immigration detention and the volunteers who visit them weekly, managing outreach work and raising awareness about the campaign to end indefinite detention.
Summary
The fourth volume of Refugee Tales shares the stories of those who have fled desperate situations in their home countries with the hope of finding protection that they've been swiftly denied, not only in Britain, but also in Canada, Greece, Italy and Switzerland.
