Andre Naffis-Sahely

Alessandro Spina

Originally published in Italian, this collection of novels and short stories follows Benghazi's transformation from Ottoman rule, through Italian colonisation, and up to King Idris's kingdom in the 1960s. Employing a cosmopolitan array of characters, ranging from Ottoman functionaries, to Sanussi aristocrats and Italian officers, Spina chronicles Italy's colonial experience from the euphoria of conquest to the rise and fall of Fascism to the country's independence in the 1950s. The book concludes with the discovery of Libya's oil fields, which led to Gaddafi's reign.

The Confines of the Shadow

Colonial Tales

Confines of the Shadow

Ngugi wa Thiong'o

An Anthology of Exile Literature

Heart of a Stranger

A fascinatingly diverse anthology of the literature of exile, from the myths of Ancient Egypt to contemporary poetry Exile lies at the root of our earliest stories. Charting varied experiences of people forced to leave their homes from the ancient world to the present day, The Heart of a Stranger is an anthology of poetry, fiction and non-fiction that journeys through six continents, with over a hundred contributors drawn from twenty-four languages. Highlights include the wisdom of the 5th century Desert Fathers and Mothers, the Swahili Song of Liyongo, The Flight of the Irish Earls, Emma Goldman's travails in the wake of the First Red Scare, the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani's ode to the lost world of Andalusia and the work of contemporary Eritrean fabulist Ribka Sibhatu. Edited by poet and translator André Naffis-Sahely, The Heart of a Stranger offers a uniquely varied look at a theme both ancient and urgently contemporary.

The Heart of a Stranger

Robert Selby

As well as a highly respected poet and editor, Mick Imlah (1956-2009) was one of the finest literary critics of his generation. He spent most of his twenty-five-year career working for the "Times Literary Supplement," reinterpreting familiar writers from Tennyson and Trollope to Larkin and Muldoon, and - as his interest in his Scottish background grew - elucidating those fallen from favour, such as Barrie, Buchan, Muir and Scott. With a preface by Mark Ford, this volume draws together a selection of Imlah's essays that reveal the formidable breadth of his unique literary insight, and the flair with which he communicated it. The volume also encompasses some of his pieces on miscellaneous subjects such as sport and travel, as well as on his own poetry, in order to provide a rounded sense of Imlah the man and writer. Mick Imlah was born in 1956 and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he taught as a Junior Fellow. He was editor of "Poetry Review" from 1983 to 1986, Chatto and Windus poetry editor from 1989 to 1993, and worked at the "Times Literary Supplement" for many years until his death in 2009. His second collection of poetry, "The Lost Leader," won the Forward Prize in 2008.

Selected Prose

Mick Imlah

Andre Naffis-Sahely

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