Book Launch: Federal Gods

Palewell Press warmly invites you to the launch of Clare Saponia's third poetry collection, Federal Gods, at The Betsey Trotwood in Farringdon, London on Thursday, May 26th. Come and join us at this very lovely venue for an evening of live poetry, as well as a Q&A with author Fran Lock.

Federal Gods is a poetry collection / story about the challenges facing asylum seekers on arriving in Europe. It’s about life in transit, the search for safety, freedom, human connection and love despite a host of adverse external factors. More press release info about the book below.

In 2015, Germany opened its doors to almost 1 million refugees, despite increasingly right-wing opinion being voiced across the continent. People were fleeing war and persecution in various parts of the Middle East, Central Africa and Afghanistan. Economic migrants from the West Balkans and Eastern Europe were escaping corruption. And yet, many countries turned their backs.

Federal Gods is the very human sequel to The Oranges of Revolution, exploring the inevitable knock-on effect of civil wars, western intervention and imperialism on civilians, who risked their lives to reach safety in Europe, only to encounter new conflicts on arrival. It documents a series of immigration stories, interactions, harsh socio-political realities and insights the author observed while volunteering at Wilmersdorf Town Hall in Berlin, using her language-training experience to teach German to refugees.

Palewell Press looks forward to welcoming you from 7pm.
Kick off time: 7:30 pm (BST) / 20:30 (CEST)

‘Federal Gods is an extraordinary account of the Refugee Crisis, recording in furious detail the miserable realities behind the newspaper headlines of people hungry for life, but starved of kindness. Powerful, moving, necessary.’

Andy Croft, Smokestack Books

‘A timely and important book about exile, forced migration and home-making. Intensified by her own experience of displacement in Berlin in the run-up to Brexit, Saponia has masterfully written an account of the 2015-17 refugee crisis in Europe with a voice that is empowering and tender, eloquent and yet deeply faithful to the realities of everyday life in transit.’

Fatemeh Shams, Assistant Professor of Modern Persian Literature, University of Pennsylvania

‘Federal Gods is a document of intense political and poetic commitment. It is also a deeply compassionate work; one that assumes the risks and rewards of vulnerability. Saponia handles her lyric subjects with clarity and genuine tenderness as she negotiates notions of belonging, longing, history, identity, and the incommensurable debt we owe to one another as members of a suffering human community. The language in Federal Gods is, by turns, moving and provocative, and always attentive to the capacities of language to unite or to divide us. The triumph of this collection is that against the instrumentalising jargon of governments and paranoid racist scare quotes saturating the mainstream media, Saponia wields words in act of practical solidarity, extending a rare and necessary space of care, community, and love.’

Fran Lock, Author of Hyena! Jackal! Dog!

Event link: https://www.facebook.com/events/703214620999642?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22extra_data%22%3A%22%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22left_rail%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22bookmark%22%7D%2C%7B%22extra_data%22%3A%22%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22left_rail%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22bookmark%22%7D%2C%7B%22extra_data%22%3A%22%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22calendar_hosting_events_unit%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22bookmark_calendar%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D

Time: 7:30pm (Doors from 7pm)