These are the stories of migration – the story of a Jamaican woman who remembers the Anansi stories of her childhood; of the Hindu woman who likens her native Poona to her new home in Leicester; of the woman from the Sudan “who was eight when the soldiers came”; of the Ukrainian who has lived in exile for fifty years; and of the prisoner who has stayed in seventeen towns but never set foot in one of them. Kevin Fegan too is a migrant, from an Irish family who came to the Midlands for want of work. His story is here too."I wish it were ten times as long. His words are full of warm courage, and so are the people whose words he records" — Adrian Mitchell“Kevin Fegan is a truly epic writer, who understands the broad sweeps of history and they can be illuminated to a dazzling effect by personal stories… we need writers like him who can see and describe the bigger picture.” — Ian McMillanKevin Fegan has written over forty stage plays and seven plays, a classic serial and a Women’s Hour serial for BBC Radio 4. He is a former storyline writer for Coronation Street and lives in Nottinghamshire. He specialises in long narrative poems, several of which have been broadcast on Radio 4. Kevin Fegan lives in Nottinghamshire.
Kevin Fagan is left-handed. Sinister. He is "cack-handed/gammy-fisted, coochy-pawed/gawky, gimmicky, clicky/skivvy, cunny, keggie-handed." A right leftie.Fagan's parents were born in Ireland. He grew up in Nottinghamshire. "On the one hand Irish/on the other hand, English/Irish? English? Which is which?"Let Your Left Hand Sing is a wonderful long poem about identity, being different, belonging and journeys. As Fagan tells the story of "the civil war raging within" him, he weaves in the tales of others whom luck, fate, war and hunger have brought to the East Midlands - from Jamaica, Sudan, the Ukraine and India. Together, the stories swell to a chorus in praise of difference and of what we have in common, an internationalist vision of a future where our children will be "passing through frontiers like e-mails/reaching out to their cousins/knocking on doors," swapping their own stories.
ANDY CROFT
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