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You can catch my reading 1:03:23

Sundra Lawrence:: Saradha is one of the poetry world's best kept secrets. Her chapbook IN HER DEEPEST SLEEP MADAM LISETTE TALATE RETURNS TO CHAGOS is a masterclass; powerful in its strength and nimbleness. It's testament to the power of slow cook poetry. She's made something true, beautiful and important. This book should be slipped in the briefing papers of all foreign secretaries and world leaders. Edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani, and part of a box set of excellent chapbooks, Cheswayo Mphanza writes an insightful and incredible Preface. The book reveals the plight and fight of the Chagossians exiled from their homeland the Chagos Archpelago by the British to make way for an American military base. The book also explores colonialism, memory and identity. Chagos 'is not where one man lived but is where/ they all remember living... /the past is tidal'. Mphanza concludes: 'Her syncretic fusion of the role of power, class, race, history, and geography expanding the uncanny drama of colonialism. I am grateful for her writings. The Labor of Saradha's work shows more than ever the need to historicise and authenticate the presence of Africans across the diaspora'.

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