Description
Book SynopsisAsylum features interviews with sixteen Canadian refugees from around the world. The interviews are shaped into a five-act play in the likeness of Shakespeare's
A Midsummer Night's Dream to address poignant questions about what is true, what is real. Philosophers, artists, and politicians take the stage alongside the refugees to highlight stories of war, displacement, and being other.
Trade Review"Swart skillfully parallels nature and human nature in Ransomed, a story with lessons and mirrors in the landscape of the Bow Valley quarry. Rife with challenges to assumptions and invitations to transform, rich in biblical allusions and allegory, this tale teaches, as Mary Jo Leddy says in Why Are We Here, the first step is seeing refugee as person not issue or other". -- Kate Marshall Flaherty, author of Reaching V and Stone Soup
"Asylum is an enlightening read that challenges us to examine our beliefs about those who are other. Laura has worked with refugees and immigrants in Canada, Asia, and the Middle East for over two decades, and in Asylum, she invites us to walk with her through the pain, the challenges, and the joys of working with displaced people". -- Stella Harvey, author of The Brink of Freedom and director of the Whistler Writers Festival
