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Things I Have Withheld

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About this listen

In this moving and lyrical collection of essays, the award-winning poet and novelist Kei Miller explores the silence in which so many important things are kept. He examines the experience of discrimination through this silence and what it means to breach it: to risk words, to risk truths. And he considers the histories our bodies inherit - the crimes that haunt them and how meaning can shift as we move throughout the world, variously assuming privilege or victimhood.

Through letters to James Baldwin, encounters with Derek Walcott, Liam Neeson, Soca, Carnival, family secrets, love affairs, white women's tears, questions of aesthetics and more, Miller powerfully and imaginatively recounts everyday acts of racism and prejudice.

With both the epigrammatic concision and conversational cadence of his poetry and novels, Things I Have Withheld is a great artistic achievement: a work of beauty which challenges us to interrogate what seems unsayable and why - our actions, defence mechanisms, imaginations and interactions - and those of the world around us.

©2021 Kei Miller (P)2021 Canongate Books Ltd Literary History & Criticism Social Sciences

The Pride List of Queer Storytelling

To mark Pride 2023 Audible teamed up with non-profit organisation, Out on the Page, supporter and champion of LGBTQIA+ writers and writing, to release an extensive Pride List of Queer Storytelling. Featuring contributions from some of the UK’s most important and exciting voices from the LGBTQIA+ community, this audiobook is one of the many featured on the list that is available to listen to on Audible.
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All stars
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Read from the heart in shuttering authenticity
A great audio book to listen to from beginning to end in one go

A deeply moving book

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Kei Miller reads the book with such heart and authenticity it's hard to switch off. A meditation on nuance, humanity and ultimately truth. I would recommend this book over and over again.

One of the best books audible has to offer

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Wow!
This is the most powerful book I've read this year and perhaps in my lifetime. This is what they mean when they say words have power. Kei is so talented, I am astound at how rich and beautiful his voice is, his accents are all so accurate and draws you in. I listened to this in one day. This is such a clever, heart warming, heartbreaking book. This is a book you must read or listen to several times to truly soak it all in. Stunning, inspiring!!

Most power read of 2023

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