‘Perced to the Roote’: Refugee Tales and the Poetics of In/Visibility

Abstract

In their aim to give a voice to those that are unheard and unseen in society, to refugees and detainees, Refugee Tales aim at countering practices of invisibilisation, especially in connection with UK immigration politics. While this might suggest a focus on narrative as a tool for communicating the untold, Refugee Tales I–IV (2016–2021) exceed this important, yet unsurprising role of narrative by unfolding the ‘making’ of invisibility. This is suggested, for instance, by the politics of adaptation and the in/visible intertext The Canterbury Tales, or by the (productive) paradox that most tales are in fact ‘translations’ penned by renowned writers, such as David Herd, Patience Agbabi, or Ali Smith. This article explores the poetics of invisibility in Refugee Tales by examining their specific (attentional) design. As I argue, these tales draw on tensions of in/visibility to unveil key instances of inattentional blindness in literature, culture, and society, challenging the relation between the seen and the unseen, between what is considered visible or invisible.