Babylon, Albion
A Personal History of Myth and Migration
I have ancient land inside of me.
Inside of me, there is a river.
In fact, rivers.
Inside of me, the Euphrates and the Tigris and the Nile converge to meet the pebbles of Brighton Beach, where my mother taught me the pure pleasure of a 99p Flake.
Whoever said nature is still has not borne witness to the migration of the seasons.
In this striking exploration of identity and place, Dalia Al-Dujaili considers what it means to belong in your land. Tracing the rich heritage of both the oak and the date palm, Iraqi marshes and Loch Ness monsters, Al-Dujaili marries Arab and Islamic mythology with the English and Christian pastoral. She draws from a rich array of sources to consider in a new light the communal lush, wild – and at times, dark – places we share.
A love song to Britain, Iraq and the body of earth we hold in common, Babylon, Albion is an urgent reimaging of what it means to be native.
Dalia Al-Dujaili is an Iraqi-British writer, editor and producer based in London. She is the online editor of The British Journal of Photography. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, Dazed, GQ, WePresent, Aperture, Atmos, It’s Nice That, Elephant Art and more. She is the founder of The Road to Nowhere Magazine and in 2023 she was the Producer of Refugee Week. Dalia holds an MA Hons in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh.
