Home and away | 7 May 2015

An extraordinary black-and-white photograph of a young black boy taken on the Isle of Wight by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1868 shows him in exotic clothes and a heavy silver-bead necklace, like a chain-of-office or a prisoner’s collar. He looks so sad, reminding me of the caged lions in London Zoo, his eyes heavy-laden, his listless body lacking the restless energy you would expect of a seven-year-old. He is Prince Alemayehu of Ethiopia, brought to England after his father, the emperor, committed suicide in his palace at Addis Ababa having just been defeated by the British. His story featured on Lemn Sissay’s Homecoming (Radio 4), broadcast in the ‘comedy slot’ on Tuesday evening — a sure way for this poignant, mind-stretching half-hour to stand out in stark contrast to the often pointlessly unfunny shows that usually fill this slot.

Sissay, who uses language as a political weapon, brilliantly swishing it this way and that to effect his meaning, was on a quest to find out what home means. He was born in England, of an Ethiopian mother, but given away immediately to be fostered. His foster parents dumped him, aged 12, in a children’s home and refused to have anything more to do with him. At 18 he was given his birth certificate (a legal requirement) and began ‘in that moment’ his search for ‘home’.

Sissay wonders whether he can ever belong in Addis Ababa given that he doesn’t speak Amharic and has never lived there. He asks his audience at a comedy gig in the Ethiopian capital, ‘Is this my home?’ He tells them Alemayehu’s story and how the prince died aged 18, of pleurisy, and was buried in St George’s Chapel, Windsor; or rather there’s a memorial plaque to him in the chapel with the biblical text ‘I was a stranger and ye took me in’ blazoned across it.