On Thursday 27 November 2025, Dalston CLR James Library hosts an in-person conversation between writer Beth Evans and journalist Aamna Mohdin about Evans’ memoir Scattered. The book reflects on her family’s experience of migration and how those events were talked about – or barely mentioned – as she grew up. This event gives both speakers space to look at what happens when those early experiences are revisited years later, and how they continue to shape people’s lives in Britain today.
Scattered traces Evans’ family history through movement, separation and change, paying attention to the details that often sit between the lines of official records: brief remarks, stories told out of order, and the way memories are edited or softened over time. Instead of focusing on policy or headlines, it looks at how migration is felt inside a household and within relationships.
Mohdin brings her own experience as a reporter and as someone with a refugee background. In 2015 she travelled to Calais to cover the refugee crisis. After she returned to London and spoke to her parents about what she had seen, they reminded her that she, too, had once been a child refugee – a fact that had slipped into the background of everyday life. That moment, when personal and professional worlds overlapped, connects closely with the questions raised in Scattered.
Over the course of the evening, Evans and Mohdin will discuss how families decide what to share with younger generations, why some experiences are left unspoken, and what it means to face those gaps as an adult. The conversation is likely to touch on how identity is shaped over time, especially for people whose lives have been marked by movement across borders. There will also be an opportunity for audience questions.
The setting is significant. Dalston CLR James Library, named after the Trinidadian-born historian and writer, regularly hosts events that examine Black history, migration and local community life in Hackney. This discussion sits within that tradition, offering a space for people with their own family stories of movement – whether from within the UK or overseas – to reflect on how those histories are carried and remembered.
The event is free and open to all, and will be of interest to readers of memoir and non-fiction, local residents, students and anyone thinking about how personal experience sits behind wider public debates on borders, asylum and belonging.
Listing Information
Event title: Scattered: Beth Evans in conversation with Aamna Mohdin
Date: Thursday 27 November 2025
Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Venue: Dalston CLR James Library, London, E8 3BQ, United Kingdom
Ticket price: Free (advance booking required)
Access information: Second floor; accessible via lift
Category: Black History / Author event