Off London Book Fair: A Talk with Shalim M Hussain by ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly published on 2020-03-11T10:53:13Z Shalim M Hussain was scheduled to talk at the London Book Fair about "Displaced Voices: Translating Writing by Refugee and Exiled Authors," organized by Literature Across Frontiers, with sponsorship from Arts Council England and Amazon Crossing. The fair didn't happen, but Hussain and fellow would-be-panelist M Lynx Qualey got together anyway to discuss his work. This talk, between MLQ and Shalim M Hussain, explores the Miyah poetry movement that was sparked in April 2016 when poet Hafiz Ahmed composed "Write Down I am a Miyah," an echo of Mahmoud Darwish’s "ID Card," and shared it on social media. Shalim followed with his own poem, "Nana I Have Written," and around thirty other poets have since joined the movement. Shalim is currently at work on a bilingual (English-Assamese) collection of Miyah poems, set to be published later this year or early 2021. Genre Poetry
