Refugee poets and artists in Malaysia reflect on hope, loss and the possibility of freedom

The George Town Literature Festival participants for the 'Poetry & Exile' session (from left) Abdulsalam, Amin Kamrani, Masuma Tavakoli, and Mwaffaq Al-Hajjar, who are all based in Malaysia. Photo: George Town Literary Festival

Acclaimed Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once wrote: “I went north, I went east and west but I could not go south because south is my country."

Reflecting on a distant homeland, three Middle Eastern poets/translators and one Afghanistan poet, who all now live in Malaysia, sat down during the recent virtual George Town Literary Festival (GTLF) 2020 in a sharing session entitled “Poetry & Exile”. The podcast was the second most popular session in the GTLF programme, behind "The Malay In Me - Covid 19 And Identity."