At the core of this debut collection is a question – what is worth holding onto? Through
poetic experiments that blend the academic and the artistic, Rhiya Pau
queries complex characters and tender landscapes. Routes journeys from
Ba’s kitchen in Sonia Gardens to Independence hour in Delhi, across the
pink shores of Nakuru, to meet a painter on Lee High Road.
Celebrating fifty years since her community arrived in the UK, Pau
chronicles the migratory histories of her ancestors and simultaneously
lays bare the conflicts of identity that arise from being a member of
the East African-Indian diaspora. In this multilingual discourse
exhibiting vast formal range, Pau wrestles with language, narrative and
memory, daring to navigate their collective fallibilities to architect
her own identity. '[Routes]...holds up to the light the wisdom of the past, and asks what else is passed down along with it...a work of humane intelligence, formal experiment and linguistic verve' - Sarah Howe, Judge of Eric Gregory Awards 2022