Filmed at www.travellingthrough.co.uk In 1964, nineteen-year old Miriam Levy sailed to an international folk festival celebrating Algeria’s liberation from the French. On a beach outside Algiers, she met esteemed Marxist guerrilla Farid Bashkiri, now a student in Moscow. A year later, his father waited to greet her at Algiers airport. The austere Boumedienne coup intervened. She cancelled the ticket. After an intense, two year correspondence, the literary liaison fell asleep. Had Farid been killed or simply disappeared? Clearing out her attic twenty four years later, she turned up a cache of letters inscribed with portraits of Lenin, Sputniks and the Red Square. By now, she was a supply teacher in a rough, inner city comprehensive with an eight year old daughter. On a whim to explore the road untravelled, she sent him a postcard. Five days later, he phoned to invite her to the 25th anniversary of Algerian independence – in a week’s time. Against the odds, she ditched her pupils and her daughter and flew into the unknown. An unexpectedly dangerous journey ensued. ABOUT THE AUTHOR NORMA COHEN has written in fact, fiction & drama about her Russian, Jewish, Communist, Liverpudlian heritage. Her novel Karl Marx Was A Scouser & play: Gone for a Burton were inspired by her mother’s bid for autonomy in the 1950s & her grandparents’ hazardous flight on a cattle boat from Russia in 1905. Her chapter on her parents’ political roots appears in Radiant Illusion? (Eden Valley Editions, 2015). She’s written short stories for Loki Books, Pandora, Women’s Press & BBC Radio 4. She’s currently completing her second novel Waiting for Farid & a play about Fellini & Giulietta Masina: Giulietta’s Feast. A former arts journalist, books include Bouquet with Flying Lovers (Gally Cat Press) & Theatre Works (National Theatre/Theatre Museum). Via a modern dance training & exhilarating theatre immersion at Ovalhouse, she worked as an actor with experimental & fringe theatre companies in the 70s & 80s, co-founding Sidewalk & Ship of Fools theatres (cabarets: Sympathetic Magic, Cleansweep, Oy Vey, Fung Shway). She recently performed in Yarning (Birmingham MAC) & is a member of Visible ensemble: www.visible.org.uk (Who Do We Think We Are? Southwark Playhouse/Northern Stage) & The Wardrobe Project (GRAEAE). She compères for And the Rest will follow poetry salon & Novel London, coaching writers & actors to communicate their work to audiences.

• published: 08 Jun 2016
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