Praise for when the flies come:
‘These poems are stubborn refractions. Al-Amoudi weds together disappeared, intertwined pasts and presents, departures and returnings, catching hold of their historical resonances and their spectral tendrils. Language is lustrous. Here, it glistens with yearning, possessing the imaginative flair of the scavenger. The abyss becomes the perfect launch pad.’
– Momtaza Mehri
‘Al-Amoudi moves fluidly from the constrained but generative particulars of archival history to the reparative inventions of imagination.’
– Imogen Cassels, TLS
‘Al-Amoudi expertly gives voice to an experience for which there are no words. Indeed, when the flies come, is a remarkable work of un-silencing and memorialisation; with exquisite precision, Al-Amoudi conjures extraordinary, cathartic dialogues with the self and the histories that haunt him.’
– Natalie Linh Bolderston, Under The Radar
‘His is a palette rich with fable and fact, place and music, one in which he gathers ephemera of pop culture to paste together a forgotten past with the fragile pieces of real, lived experience.’
– Cheryl Moskowitz, Magma