Dr Saba Vasefi and one of the featured poets, Betelhem Zekele from Naru Narratives.
As part of Refugee Week (19-25 June), the Art Gallery of NSW is running Naru Narratives: Writing in Resistance.
A joint event created by human rights journalist and writer, Dr Saba Vasefi and Red Room Poetry, it will be a night of poetry reading and panel discussion by women and non-binary refugees and asylum seekers. Six poets, who’ve previously spent time in detention will perform their work, to be followed by Dr Vasefi in conversation with Senator Mehreen Faruqi (the first Muslim woman to sit in an Australian parliament and the new Deputy Leader of the Greens).
Thuy On is the Reviews and Literary Editor of ArtsHub and an arts journalist, critic and poet who’s written for a range of publications including The Guardian, The Saturday Paper, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, The Age/SMH and Australian Book Review. She was the Books Editor of The Big Issue for 8 years and a former Melbourne theatre critic correspondent for The Australian.
She has three collections of poetry published by the University of Western Australian Press (UWAP): Turbulence (2020), Decadence (2022) and Essence (2025).
Threads: @thuy_on123 Instagram: poemsbythuy
