First published 2024
Hannah arrives in London as a young Eritrean refugee and finds herself placed in a Kilburn foster home. She spends her nights sleeping rough in Bloomsbury's squares, caught between the promise and cruelty of her new country. The asylum system treats her as a case file, pushing her through endless bureaucratic procedures that strip away her humanity. Hannah fights back through her sexuality, using intimate encounters as acts of rebellion against a system that seeks to control every aspect of her existence. Moving between her traumatic past and uncertain present, she struggles to maintain her identity while the West simultaneously offers salvation and inflicts abuse. Her body becomes both battlefield and sanctuary as she refuses to let the immigration machinery silence her voice or crush her spirit.
Genres: drama, literary-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction, social-issues, 21st-century
Vibes: dark, emotionally-raw, gritty, haunting, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: body-autonomy, coming-of-age, fish-out-of-water, institutional-critique, trauma-recovery
Setting: London, Kilburn, Bloomsbury, Eritrea
Period: 21st century, contemporary
136 pages · Paperback · Prototype Publishing
Content warnings: abuse, racism, sexual-content