Tape Letters

Tape Letters is a social history project, which shines a light on the use of audio cassette tapes as a mode of long-distance communication by the Pakistani diaspora who migrated and settled in the UK between 1960 and 1980.

Wajid Yaseen, Sound Artist and Director of Modus Arts, founded the project and now leads a multi-disciplinary team consisting of linguists, social geographers, traditional historians, oral historians, archivists, photographers, poets, and filmmakers, producing a wide range of outputs based on over a hundred interviews and over forty surviving cassettes.

Commissioned by Modus Arts, Suna Afshan produced this poetry pamphlet. It is in response to five cassette tapes currently held at the Bishopsgate Institute in London as part of the Tape Letters archive.

Suna has undertaken a direct, word-for-word translation, and thus illuminated the rich music of Pothwari, Pahari, and Pashto – languages spoken, without script. Here is the poetry of the everyday, of longing, of a hundred hellos and prayers, and intimacy bravely expressed.

>> The preface is available to read here.

>> Enquiries to procure the pamphlet for review can be made here.

>> If you’d like to stock the pamphlet in your store, direct enquiries to Modus Arts.