God's Zoo

This beautifully illustrated book consists of a series of encounters with writers, artists and musicians living in London, all of whom are exiles or émigrés displaced from their cultural and geographical origins. The subjects include poet John Rety (Hungary), poet Fawzi Karim (Iraq), novelist Moris Farhi (Turkey), poet Martina Evans (Ireland), artist Ana Maria Pacheco (Brazil), actor Andrzej Borkowski (Poland), novelist Brian Chikwava (Zimbabwe), writer Hamid Ismailov and musician Razia Sultanova (Uzbekistan), poet Mimi Khalvati (Iran), filmmaker Rajan Khosa (India), and jazz bassist Coleridge Goode (Jamaica); the book concludes with an autobiographical account. Together, the chapters form a perceptive and moving enquiry into complex questions of migration, identity and belonging – as well as a tribute to the value of art and creativity in human lives.