FINDING ALBION
- Words Tom Faber
- Photos Alixe Lay
The writer, broadcaster and DJ Zakia Sewell is on a quest through the history and folklore of the British Isles.
Sewell is pictured in Hastings, a seaside town in the UK she traveled to while researching Finding Albion.
Ten years ago, Zakia Sewell had an encounter that changed her life. She was 23 years old and working at Honest Jon’s, a record shop in West London. One day she was at a cheap Malaysian restaurant, her usual lunch spot, when she overheard a group at the next table talking about spirituality. “I was in quite a difficult chapter of my life,” she recalls. “It was before I’d started therapy and I was feeling lost and unhappy, and they were having this fascinating conversation and I thought: Oh my God, I need to know who these people are.” It turned out that they were Sufis, belonging to a mystic branch of Islam. One of them began to talk to Sewell about life’s core spiritual quest, which he described as “using the natural tools we’re given, like intuition, empathy and logic, to learn more about ourselves and the world around us.” She found herself strangely moved by the conversation. Outside the café, tears sprang to her eyes.
