Hillingdon Literary Festival


Hillingdon Literary Festival 
The reading of our collaborative work for the competition 
 Writing Local Thinking Global 

 We were one of the six short listed for the prize with Umbilical Cord to Motherland - Dante and myself created from my translations and conversations together. 

 https://www.hillingdonliteraryfestival.com/anthology/
Follow the link for online page turner of the book 
Writing Local Thinking Global 


 and for more information on the festival and the contributors... 


All thanks to Seb for the organisation of this and to Brunel University Creative Writing Department for their support and value of this work we produced.  

 The Creative Writing department are well stimulating with all their amazing lecturers and students....... I hope one day I can study for my BA in Creative Writing as it is amazing to drop into characters and their lives..... it is a major learning curve to see from another persons frame of reference.  

 Our work is from a reality view..... and personal experience of war and the pain of a family separated...... but from this we can generate more work some fictional novels from the touch of this reality....... and Dante is a powerful writer his Arabic is in depth with a powerful range of descriptive words and sentences, that can transport me into the world where I can see feel taste and smell all around. Like I am dropped in the scene... We love mind connecting.... 

 So fascinating and makes me smile sometimes that a Yorkshire lass and Syrian refugee can link in this way......but our link is we have both felt the pain of violence and torture and abuse..... his much more than mine but the after shock and feelings are our uniting force of post traumatic stress.  

 I hope dear readers that you are seeing refugees as families 
families shattered and scattered through the pain of war.  

 We most certainly need to rebuild and reconnect those families..... 

 This week Dante in Turkey received his copy of the Writing Local Thinking Global and feels the warmth of his pain recognised and valued......

 What a powerful and warming reach out for us from Hillingdon to him in Turkey this is... Thank you Shukran  


Here is a glimmer of some more of his work published on my wwwhydrate.blogspot on 28th February 2016
So there's a theme going on here of Arabic courtyard style houses, which I just adore. I think the idea of having a courtyard in the middle of your home is romantic, like a secret garden, and is so private. I also love how the Arabic world does arches, especially this one here. The blue windows are also just darling.:


Clear dream shared by a refugee in Turkey of his elderly mother who is still alive but trapped in Deir Ezzor.  Translated from Arabic and adapted in English by Marjorie. 

I saw her. I swear I saw her cross the house courtyard. Stepping out in haste before dawn. The dutiful morning prayer before the start of her busy day. Then I could hear her make the morning tea..... yes  I hear footsteps in synchronous beat with my heart. I even heard her knock on my bedroom door.  Her image like the light of a star, hazy and fragile, a fugitive within the darkness of my despair. Missing her and in pain each day as to her safety. I think of her and I feel her think of me.
Yes it was my mother.
~~~~~~~~~
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