All of Us: 2019

Description

In All of Us, established New Zealand author Adrienne Jansen and exciting new writer Carina Gallegos use poems and short prose to weave together the vibrant, expansive, and sometimes heart-wrenching stories of refugees and immigrants in New Zealand today. Drawing on their time spent with refugee and immigrant communities, their words delicately lift the veil that separates us, providing a moving exploration of the refugee and immigrant experience. All of Us is a timely reminder of the humanity that perseveres at the core of this global debate.

For most of her life Adrienne Jansen has been writing alongside migrants to New Zealand to tell their stories - in fiction, non-fiction, and now in poetry. `Personal stories have the power to shift our heads,' she says. She lives in Porirua with her family. Carina Gallegos has a background in journalism and development studies. She moved to New Zealand thirteen years ago and has worked with refugee-background communities since 2011. She lives in Wellington with her family.

"Adrienne Jansen and Carina Gallegos have listened to many stories from migrants and `refugees' as we call them, and in All of Us they hand those stories on to us. Jansen and Gallegos's poem-stories of new lives in Aotearoa New Zealand are hard-edged and at the same time tender. Maybe this new land will slowly become a home? Maybe mud and stones and spirits from the past will never let that happen? Maybe we will never let that happen? There are no easy answers here, but All of Us lets us listen to the human heart, beating." - Lynn Jenner