Verso to donate books to Calais' Jungle refugee camp

Verso London is to send books to the makeshift library created at the Calais migrant camp known as the 'Jungle'.

Jungle Books, set up by British teacher Mary Jones, has been appealing for books to add to the library in the native languages of the migrants, refugees and asylum seekers there.

Verso is sending a selection of English-language titles including John Berger's A Seventh Man, Hsiao-Hung Pai's Scattered Sand, Jeremy Harding's Border Vigils, graphic novels, and foreign editions of its books in several languages.

Jones told Publishing Perspectives: “We’ve only just set the library up and it’s been fascinating to see what people are asking for — short stories and poetry, for example — but we need Pashto-French dictionaries, Pashto-English dictionaries, Eritrean dictionaries, books in native languages… Eventually, I would like the migrants to run it themselves, so that they don’t need me.”

And Other Stories is also sending books via Verso’s shipment.

Anyone who wants to contribute to the shipment being sent by Verso should email sarah@verso.co.uk to arrange dropping them off at the company’s Soho office.

To contact Jungle Books directly, email Mary Jones at maryjones@orange.fr.