Hamid and Shakespeare

Book excerpt: A chance spotting from the back of a refrigerated lorry of a poster marking Shakespeare's 400th birthday spurs a refugee's imagination to transport himself from his detention cell to a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream at London's Globe Theatre. As we move between the 21st and 17th centuries, Shakespeare introduces Hamid both to a promised new land, and to a series of well-known plays through which Hamid tells his own experiences: of interrogation, of his journey from home: crossing the sea, getting lost in the forest, his months spent in the Calais Jungle refugee camp, and his arrival in the UK.