Based on the lives and writings of four members of PEN Canada’s writers-in-exile program, The TAXI Project provides a glimpse into what it means to be forced to leave your homeland to start your life anew.After years of incarceration by the Red Terror in Ethiopia, Seeyyee Seera struggles to become a mother to her children again. Alejandra Pineda remains haunted by memories of torture at the hands of the Mexican authorities for her role in a student uprising. Xiao Hong, amongst the protesters at the Tiananmen Square uprising in China, cannot return to see her dying mother. And finally, Exyou Peric-a Bosnian photo journalist who drives a taxi, the interior covered in Polaroid photos of of his passengers.We follow the characters on their journeys: attempting to be heard by a society that doesn’t speak their language, searching for employment, surviving the loneliness of a harsh Toronto winter, and struggling to find the energy necessary to keep on writing.

Emma Beltran is a poet. She was kidnapped and tortured by the Mexican National Army for her part in the student strike at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1999.

Emma Beltran's profile page

Martha Kumsa was born and raised in Ethiopia, where she worked as a journalist until being imprisoned early in 1980. She spent 10 years in jail.

Martha Kumsa's profile page

Sheng Xue grew up in Beijing. She moved to Canada soon after the June 4th Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. She is a poet and investigative journalist.

Sheng Xue's profile page

“There's so much emotion crammed into The TAXI Project–quiet emotion, it's true, but the kind that lingers long after the lights come up–that you’ll walk out of the hour-long show feeling like one of the stuffed suitcases carried by the four characters.”
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