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Refugee Tales: Volume III
With nationalism and the far right on the rise across Europe and North America, there has never been a more important moment to face up to what we, in Britain, are doing to those who seek sanctuary. Still the UK detains people indefinitely under immigration rules. Bail hearings go unrecorded, people are picked up without notice, individuals feel abandoned in detention centres with no way of knowing when they will be released.
In Refugee Tales III we read the stories of people who have been through this process, many of whom have yet to see their cases resolved and who live in fear that at any moment they might be detained again. Poets, novelists and writers have once again collaborated with people who have experienced detention, their tales appearing alongside first-hand accounts by people who themselves have been detained. What we hear in these stories are the realities of the hostile environment, the human costs of a system that disregards rights, that denies freedoms and suspends lives.
In Refugee Tales III we read the stories of people who have been through this process, many of whom have yet to see their cases resolved and who live in fear that at any moment they might be detained again. Poets, novelists and writers have once again collaborated with people who have experienced detention, their tales appearing alongside first-hand accounts by people who themselves have been detained. What we hear in these stories are the realities of the hostile environment, the human costs of a system that disregards rights, that denies freedoms and suspends lives.
- GenresNonfiction
208 pages, Paperback
Published August 22, 2019
5 people are currently reading
150 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Gale
43 books706 followersPatrick was born on 31 January 1962 on the Isle of Wight, where his father was prison governor at Camp Hill, as his grandfather had been at nearby Parkhurst. He was the youngest of four; one sister, two brothers, spread over ten years. The family moved to London, where his father ran Wandsworth Prison, then to Winchester. At eight Patrick began boarding as a Winchester College Quirister at the cathedral choir school, Pilgrim's. At thirteen he went on to Winchester College. He finished his formal education with an English degree from New College, Oxford in 1983.
He has never had a grown-up job. For three years he lived at a succession of addresses, from a Notting Hill bedsit to a crumbling French chateau. While working on his first novels he eked out his slender income with odd jobs; as a typist, a singing waiter, a designer's secretary, a ghost-writer for an encyclopedia of the musical and, increasingly, as a book reviewer.
His first two novels, The Aerodynamics of Pork and Ease were published by Abacus on the same day in June 1986. The following year he moved to Camelford near the north coast of Cornwall and began a love affair with the county that has fed his work ever since.
He now lives in the far west, on a farm near Land's End with his husband, Aidan Hicks. There they raise beef cattle and grow barley. Patrick is obsessed with the garden they have created in what must be one of England's windiest sites and deeply resents the time his writing makes him spend away from working in it. As well as gardening, he plays both the modern and baroque cello. His chief extravagance in life is opera tickets.
He has never had a grown-up job. For three years he lived at a succession of addresses, from a Notting Hill bedsit to a crumbling French chateau. While working on his first novels he eked out his slender income with odd jobs; as a typist, a singing waiter, a designer's secretary, a ghost-writer for an encyclopedia of the musical and, increasingly, as a book reviewer.
His first two novels, The Aerodynamics of Pork and Ease were published by Abacus on the same day in June 1986. The following year he moved to Camelford near the north coast of Cornwall and began a love affair with the county that has fed his work ever since.
He now lives in the far west, on a farm near Land's End with his husband, Aidan Hicks. There they raise beef cattle and grow barley. Patrick is obsessed with the garden they have created in what must be one of England's windiest sites and deeply resents the time his writing makes him spend away from working in it. As well as gardening, he plays both the modern and baroque cello. His chief extravagance in life is opera tickets.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 26, 2020
MUST READ!!!
are you aware that the UK is the only European country enforcing indefinite detention to refugees? A practice which is against the human rights law's
Image being raped, tortured, brutalised, displaced by war or starvation,maybe your religion is wrong or your tribe is persecuted, maybe your family has been killed, maybe you were just a farmer minding your field when the malitia took everything you own and torched your life.
Imagine coming to the UK for asylum and being locked up indefinitely without representation or explanation? Cases of up to 9 years detention have been recorded.
If released you have no right to work, £35 of vouchers (no cash)
Expected to sign weekly at police stations or embassy appointments (vouchers can't be used on transport) miss a signing and back to indefinite detention
I knew very little of the above and there is much more in this short 200 pages
Numerous short stories given by refugees of why and how their live circumstances brought them here
This is the most powerful and important book I've read this year.
are you aware that the UK is the only European country enforcing indefinite detention to refugees? A practice which is against the human rights law's
Image being raped, tortured, brutalised, displaced by war or starvation,maybe your religion is wrong or your tribe is persecuted, maybe your family has been killed, maybe you were just a farmer minding your field when the malitia took everything you own and torched your life.
Imagine coming to the UK for asylum and being locked up indefinitely without representation or explanation? Cases of up to 9 years detention have been recorded.
If released you have no right to work, £35 of vouchers (no cash)
Expected to sign weekly at police stations or embassy appointments (vouchers can't be used on transport) miss a signing and back to indefinite detention
I knew very little of the above and there is much more in this short 200 pages
Numerous short stories given by refugees of why and how their live circumstances brought them here
This is the most powerful and important book I've read this year.
May 18, 2023
Pijnlijk... zeer pijnlijk...
Ik weet dat de mens tot veel goede en mooie dingen in staat is, maar de mens is ook heel dikwijls een weerzinwekkend monster. En de manier waarop er omgegaan wordt met vluchtelingen, mensen die alles verloren hebben en wanhopig op zoek zijn naar een plek om te leven en gelukkig te zijn, is jammer genoeg maar al te veel een allesbehalve verheffend voorbeeld van die weerzinwekkende kant.
De berichtgeving in de media over alles wat met vluchtelingen te maken heeft en de protserige redevoeringen van politici, geven een afstandelijk beeld van de trieste realiteit.
De getuigenissen van de vluchtelingen zelf daarentegen spreken boekdelen die absoluut niet opwekkend zijn.
Het is pijnlijk, je voelt je machteloos en je zou willen dat het allemaal anders en veel beter kon verlopen.
Ik weet dat de mens tot veel goede en mooie dingen in staat is, maar de mens is ook heel dikwijls een weerzinwekkend monster. En de manier waarop er omgegaan wordt met vluchtelingen, mensen die alles verloren hebben en wanhopig op zoek zijn naar een plek om te leven en gelukkig te zijn, is jammer genoeg maar al te veel een allesbehalve verheffend voorbeeld van die weerzinwekkende kant.
De berichtgeving in de media over alles wat met vluchtelingen te maken heeft en de protserige redevoeringen van politici, geven een afstandelijk beeld van de trieste realiteit.
De getuigenissen van de vluchtelingen zelf daarentegen spreken boekdelen die absoluut niet opwekkend zijn.
Het is pijnlijk, je voelt je machteloos en je zou willen dat het allemaal anders en veel beter kon verlopen.
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September 20, 2019Fiction R33293 2019
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews