The Diary of an Asylum Seeker: Anatomy of A Work In Progress

I’ve taken a leaf off George Bernard Shaw’s book and have written a very long introduction to my work in progress, the Diary of an Asylum Seeker.

The introduction is really a ‘back story’ in that it shows part of how the Diary came about; it shows part of how I’ve been working on the Diary and it shows part of the reception the Diary has received so far.

I started working on what is becoming the Diary of an Asylum Seeker in late 2004 or early 2005 after coming into contact with the Assist Service, a medical practice which provides specialized primary health care for asylum seekers in Leicester. There, one of the people I was and still am in dialogue with is Jan Moore, the practice therapist, who suggested that I keep a diary. Which I did. For about a week or two.

I wish I’d kept the diary more religiously. I wish I’d kept it like medicine. I didn’t. I tell myself that the reason for this was because, soon afterwards, I started writing a lot about asylum seekers, about who they are, about the pressures that force them to leave home and country, about the countries they claim asylum in and the reception they receive in those countries. Some these articles have been published in places that include UK Indymedia, Worldpress.org, OhmyNews International, Labour Left Briefing and the British Journal of Occupational Therapy.

In both the fiction and non-fiction writing that I do, each time I focus on a subject, I do a lot of reading around it and I make extensive notes on it. In some cases, the subject dominates or takes over and I start living for it. Writing about the subject becomes the reason why I’m here, it becomes the reason why I’m alive. It becomes difficult to stop thinking about it and I start talking about it incessantly. Aspects of the subject also invade my dreams when I sleep and I start living them intensely that way. Because of this, the diary became a journal and then it became a notebook on asylum seekers and aspects of the immigration and asylum system and then it became a journal and then it became a diary. And then I thought, “Instead of writing newsy stuff about all this, why not a short story or a novel that will focus of a day, a week, a month or a year in the life of an asylum seeker?”

Article Author: Ambrose Musiyiwa

Ambrose Musiyiwa has worked as a freelance journalist, book reviewer, and a teacher. One of his short stories has been featured in an anthology of contemporary Zimbabwean writing, Writing Now: More Stories from Zimbabwe (Weaver Press, 2005.) He is a regular contributor to OhmyNews International. …

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