Kudakwashe Vanyoro interviews John Marnell and Alejandra Oliva about their books Seeking Sanctuary and Rivermouth. They deliberate about telling other people’s stories, the experiences of LGBTIQ migrants, immigration policies, translation, faith-based organisations and solidarity.

Kudakwashe Vanyoro is a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Wits University. He is the author of the forthcoming book Migration, Crisis and Temporality at the Zimbabwe-South Africa Border: Governing Immobilities (Bristol University Press, 2024).

John Marnell is a Doctoral Researcher at the African Centre for Migration & Society at Wits University. He is the author of Seeking Sanctuary: Stories of Sexuality, Faith and Migration (Wits University Press, 2021) and with B Camminga co-edited Queer and Trans African Mobilities: Migration, Asylum and Diaspora (Zed Books, 2022).

Alejandra Oliva is an essayist, embroider, translator and immigrant justice advocate. Her book Rivermouth: A Chronicle of Language, Faith and Migration (Astra House, 2023) received a Whiting Nonfiction Grant. She was the Yale Whitney Humanities Center Franke Visiting Fellow in Spring 2022.

In this episode we are in solidarity with Crimean Tatar citizen journalist and human rights defender Server Mustafayev. We call on the authorities in Russia to free him. You can read more about his case here: https://www.pen-international.org/our-campaigns/day-of-the-imprisoned-writer-2022

As tributes to him, John reads “Teach the Nation Poetry” by Stella Nyanzi, Alejandra reads “Like You” by Roque Dalton (translated by Jack Hirschman) and Kuda reads an extract from the book he’s writing with his brother, Diaries of Border.

PEN South Africa joins the PEN community in mourning the journalists and writers who have been killed in Russia’s war on Ukraine, including Ukrainian writer Volodemyr Vakulenko and PEN Ukraine member and human rights defender Victoria Amelina. Read more here: https://www.pen-international.org/news/pen-international-mourns-the-killing-of-victoria-amelina

This podcast series is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Embassy in South Africa to promote open conversation and highlight shared histories.