Sweet Li JieIn Sweet Li Jie, two distant worlds converge: Wuhan Province in China and British Guiana. Jia Yun, a traveling textile merchant, leaves Wuhan to join the exodus of migrants escaping poverty. Most of them to become indentured labourers in the canefields of Demerara. Through heartfelt letters intended for his sweetheart, Li Jie, Jia Yun paints a vivid picture of life for Indians, Africans, and other ethnic groups under British rule during the twilight

What’s happening

The descriptive poems in the book’s first part set the scene for the political and artistic perspectives in its second – made up of pieces arising from time spent as poet-in-residence at the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading

and whose origins are in Morocco

to address readers beyond an academic circle

Her vision is clear and bright

It is the first in series set in and around the Highland village of Duncul

remastered with new chapters and never-before-seen photographs

For seventhly he fleas himself

and Kosovar Albanian poet Ervina Halili

which tells her story

often within a relational context

and creates a social satire with elements of magic realism