Through the mediums of memoir and poetry, Uyghur poet and memoirist Tahir Hamut Izgil and Iraqi American poet Dunya Mikhail challenge dominant political narratives and preserve stories of displacement, exile and perseverance. In his memoir, Waiting to Be Arrested at Night, Izgil documents the Chinese government’s persecution of the Uyghur people and his time in a labor camp. In Mikhail’s poetry collection, Tablets: Secrets of Clay, she explores her family’s exile from Iraq while looking back at Iraqi history.
In a dynamic discussion at the PEN World Voices Festival, Writing as Resistance, moderated by novelist Mojgan Ghazirad (The House on Sun Street), Izgil and Mikhail delved into the urgency of documenting personal and collective experiences, and how the act of writing both engenders change and urges us towards the future.