In her preferred short length stories, Maxine Beneba Clarke introduces the characters from Australia, Jamaica, England, Sri Lanka, and Uganda. In her piercing responses to Tony Britten’s questions on the Foreign Soil collection, the author admits its nature is semi-autobiographical as some of her stories were inspired by political events and her personal experience:
Harlem Jones was inspired by the 2011 Tottenham riots in London. The Stilt Fishermen of Kathaluwa is set in an Australian detention centre. My first ‘career’ was in human rights law, and those themes and interests have carried over into my writing. (Britten, 2016, 26)
Through the story “Big Islan,” Maxine Beneba Clarke portrays the post colonial displacement problematics comparing Great Britain, the island of migration desire, to Jamaica. Clarise teaches her husband Nathaniel to read in order to broad their economic perspectives. As a result, Ruth McHugh-Dillon notices, “[e]ducation in the story proves its ambivalent, decolonising potential, as both submission to the coloniser’s system and new means to subvert it” (2018, 1).
The prevalent subject of migration is developed further in The Stilt Fishermen of Kathaluwa where the author tackles assimilation and silencing. In this setting, the story is crucial for refugee rights as it gives agency to immigrants from South Globe. Powerless and in despair, Asanaka steals the necessary tools from Loretta’s bag to sew his mouth. The metaphor serves to depict him back again, in the Australian officer’s eyes, to a fish, “caught, trapped, helpless and awaiting its inevitable fate” (Edwards & Hogarth, 2017, 8).
Maxine Beneba Clarke’s writing is important because it underlines the significance of equality, respect, and fundamental human rights and values in the era of the biggest migrations since the World War II. Her stories show the bold pain, anger, intercultural differences intertwined with assimilation and lack of asylum.

Britten, T. (2016). Interview with Maxine Beneba Clarke. Metaphor, 2, 25-27.
Edwards, N., & Hogarth, C. (2017). Fishermen and Little Fish: Migration and Hospitality in Maxine Beneba Clarke's 'The Stilt Fishermen of Kathaluwa.' Portal : Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 13(2),1-10.
McHugh-Dillon, R. (2018). Island Mentality: Mapping “de globality ov it all” between Jamaica, England, and Australia in Maxine Beneba Clarke’s “Big Islan.” Postcolonial Text, 13(4),1-15.

In her preferred short length stories, Maxine Beneba Clarke introduces the characters from Australia, Jamaica, England, Sri Lanka, and Uganda. In her piercing responses to Tony Britten’s questions on the Foreign Soil collection, the author admits its nature is semi-autobiographical as some of her stories were inspired by political events and her personal experience:
Harlem...