This be the Answer: Poems from Prison - Syed Talha Ahsan - £2

Free Talha from RadioRamadanEdinburgh on Vimeo.

(including words from Gareth Pierce - his legal representative)

"This be the Answer" Prison Poems by Talha Ahsan

Composed over 5 years in prisons HMP Long Lartin and HMP Belmarsh, whilst held on detention without trail under UK-US extradition treaty, including selection from Dasmascus potraits from Syria.

ISBN 978-0-9568106-0-1
available for £2 plus post and package from advertising@radioramadanedinburgh.com

"Talha Ahsan's poems are little gems. Darts of light leap from them, illuminating the poet's engagement with life, politics and spirituality." Richard Haley, Chair SACC

" Buy the book, write to Talha..." Aamer Anwar, Lawyer, Human Rights Campaigner

Debuted at Edinburgh, Feb 2011,  as part of Radio Radio Ramadan Edinburgh's Taught by the Pen festival. With readings by A. L. Kennedy and Tam Dean Burns. See a reading here.

"This be the Answer" Prison Poems by Talha Ahsan available from RadioRamadanEdinburgh on Vimeo.

Read award-winning writer A. L. Kennedy on Talha's correspondence in The Guardian here. 

A. L. Kennedy:  "...tender and fierce pieces that deal in part with pleasures he can't have: a choice of food, the touch of a lover's skin, the ability to be where he would like. I know that writing has always been a consolation to me, a refuge and a source of strength. I know that writing can express the humanity of those who are written out of life elsewhere. I know that the simple act of sending a letter to a prisoner can change him or her and how they are treated. Amnesty's and PEN's work is centred on the effectiveness of the written word. But how do I talk about these things to someone enduring something I can't imagine and know that I couldn't withstand? How do I talk about the humanity of writing, that it is a triumph of beauty, when humanity's treatment of Ahsan has been so ugly? Onwards."