Join us on tour in 2026
WritersMosaic Live at the Hay Festival – What we leave we carry
Festival / Panel
Friday 29 May 2026, 1pm – MUBI Cinema
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? Colin Grant, director of WritersMosaic, draws out candid and moving stories of migration – foundational tales of arriving in a new land, along with rarely spoken tales of love and loss. This is a chance to listen to Britain, in all its richness and complexity.
He’s joined by storytellers sharing the secrets of their migrant songs and objects: Suzanne Harrington (The Liberty Tree), an Irish writer who travelled with an ‘introductory’ sick note from her psychiatrist; Eric Ngalle Charles (Homelands), a Cameroonian poet bestowed with an ancestral charm to ward off any danger encountered in Britain; and Amanada Vilanova (Hurricane Diaries), a Puerto Rican actor gifted her mother’s jewellery to sell in an emergency.
WritersMosaic Live at the Hay Festival – Iranian women’s voices
Festival / Panel
Saturday 30 May 2026, 1pm – MUBI Cinema
Hear the chants of ‘Women, Life, Freedom’, as strong as they’ve ever been, echoing through generations of Iranian women protesting imposed, patriarchal restrictions. Inspired by the ‘rebel poet of Iran’ Forugh Farrokhzad, new publication Iranian Women’s Voices brings together the perspectives of creative women in Iran and the diaspora, as they reflect on art, the constraints of present-day Iran and their dreams for the future.
Join this afternoon of poetry, film and Iranian music, presented by WritersMosaic, with writer and translator Shara Atashi, poet author Sana Nassari, poet and performer Marjorie Lotfi and musician Roya Arab. The event is introduced by historian Colin Grant and features the extraordinary documentary photography of Hengameh Golestan, whose work captures women protesting the oppression of the Iranian authorities.
WritersMosaic Live at the Southbank Centre – What we leave we carry
Festival / Panel
Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London, Wednesday 26 Aug 2026, 7.45pm
An evening of candid, profoundly human, sometimes funny and always moving stories of migration in celebration of Colin Grant’s book.
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 is joined by storytellers from this oral history sharing 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 features live Afro-Colombian music and dance from Akolá Tambó.
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