Please note this event is SOLD OUT but you can join the waiting list by clicking on the ticket button.

What does home look like when you are writing far away, unable to return?

As part of the Refugee Festival Scotland, Scottish PEN’s Writers In Exile committee will bring together a range of exiled writers, or those writing far from home to discuss how distance, the inability to return and living in the UK has influenced their writing and their lives. As part of this we will also speak to journalists who now live in Scotland following threats to them or others for speaking out and speaking up. Chaired by Liz Niven, the chair of the Writers In Exile Committee, and featuring Sawsan Al-Areeqe, Samina Chaudhry, Abdulrahman Ezz (exiled Egyptian journalist) and Gianinni Mastrangioli Salazar (exiled Venezuelan journalist), this will be a frank and open discussion looking at how free expression can transcend national borders, the reasons for exile and what home looks like, irrespective of how far from it you now are.

The event will also feature a series of readings of poetry and short fiction from PENning, the Writers in Exile Committee’s biannual online journal, presenting work by Scottish PEN members alongside writing from people living in Scotland who are from other parts of the world.

Please join us as we reimagine home and stand in solidarity with those forced into exile for speaking up.