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What We Leave We Carry

Southbank Centre, London

26 August 2026

Colin Grant celebrated the WritersMosaic-inspired book, What We Leave We Carry, with storytellers and migrants Suzanne Harrington, Maria Jastrzębska, Amanda Vilanova and Clementine Burnley at Southbank Centre.

Left-right: Colin Grant, Maria Jastrzębska, Suzanne Harrington, Clementine Burnley and Amanda Vilanova. Photo: Christian Cassiel

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What do we leave behind when we move to a new place – and what do we carry with us, physically and emotionally, wherever we land?

Grant has travelled the country with writers from WritersMosaic, listening to stories of migration – foundational tales of arriving in a new land, along with rarely spoken tales of love and loss.

What We Leave We Carry is a chance to listen to Britain – in all its richness and complexity.

Grant was joined by storytellers from this oral history who shared the secrets of their migrant songs and objects: Suzanne Harrington, an Irish writer who travelled with an ‘introductory’ sick note from her psychiatrist; Maria Jastrzębska, a Polish poet recounting partisan songs that poked fun at Hitler; Amanda Vilanova, a Puerto Rican actor gifted her mother’s jewellery to sell in an emergency; and Clementine Burnley, a Cameroonian psychotherapist who arrived as a student in 1980s Glasgow inspired by ‘Kung Fu Fighting’.

The evening also featured live Afro-Colombian music and dance from Akolá Tambó.

Photos: Christian Cassiel

Penguin Random House: What We Leave We Carry

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