Lemn Sissay's Homecoming

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Lemn Sissay's Homecoming: Episode 1: Addis Ababa

Episode 1

Episode 1: Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa

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Poet Lemn Sissay explores the nature of home through comedy, poetry and conversation.

Poet Lemn Sissay explores the nature of home through comedy, poetry and conversation. Recorded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2015.

We all leave. We all migrate from childhood to adulthood, from village to town to city, from single to married. 

We all hate and love where we are from. We are all immigrants of time. 

There are problems with home and a need to leave. There is a love of home and a need to leave. 

Goodbye is who we are.

Lemn Sissay explores what "home" means through stand-up, poetry and conversation. It's surely not just a physical location - it's the people, the memories, the feeling. It's not home if you don't belong there, it's just where you live.

The first of two shows was recorded at the Ghion Hotel, in Addis Ababa. 

Addis is a place that Lemn feels at home in - but why? He wasn't born there, doesn't live there, and can't even speak the language. Helping Lemn understand this are two Ethiopians who were brought up in Europe but who, unlike Lemn, moved back to Addis in adulthood; a social anthropologist who is an Ethiopian with a famous English name; and his own sister, who is Addis born and bred.

Written and performed by Lemn Sissay,

Producer:  Ed Morrish

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2015.

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Poet Lemn Sissay explores the nature of home through comedy, poetry and conversation

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