25 February 2024, The Alexander Centre, Faversham, 12.30pm
Ann Morgan, Crossing Over
Literary explorer Ann Morgan, based in Folkestone, set herself a year-long challenge to read a book from every country. In Reading the World she records her quest. Crossing Over tells the story of an encounter between an 87-year-old Kent coast resident with dementia and a traumatised Malawian migrant hiding in her barn.
Ann will be talking to author Maggie Butt about her lifelong endeavour to champion the sharing of stories from across the globe.
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Crossing OverAnn Morgan
Edie finds the world around her increasingly difficult to comprehend. Words are no longer at her beck and call, old friends won’t mind their own business and workmen have appeared in the neighbouring fields, preparing to obliterate the landscape she has known all her life. Rattling around in an old farmhouse on the cliffs, she’s beginning to run out of excuses to stop do-gooders interfering when one day she finds an uninvited guest in the barn and is thrown back into the past.
Jonah has finally made it to England – where everything, he’s been told, will be better. But the journey was fraught with danger, and many of his fellow travellers didn’t make it. Sights firmly set on London, but unsure which way to turn, he is unprepared for what happens when he breaks into Edie’s barn.
Haunted by the prospect of being locked away and unable to trust anyone else, the elderly woman stubbornly battling dementia and the traumatised illegal immigrant find solace in an unlikely companionship that helps them make sense of their worlds even as they struggle to understand each other. Crossing Over is a delicately spun tale that celebrates compassion and considers the transcendent language of humanity.