3.5
The Heart of a Stranger
ByPublisher Description
A fascinatingly diverse anthology of the literature of exile, from the myths of Ancient Egypt to contemporary poetry
Exile lies at the root of our earliest stories. Charting varied experiences of people forced to leave their homes from the ancient world to the present day, The Heart of a Stranger is an anthology of poetry, fiction and non-fiction that journeys through six continents, with over a hundred contributors drawn from twenty-four languages.
Highlights include the wisdom of the 5th century Desert Fathers and Mothers, the Swahili Song of Liyongo, The Flight of the Irish Earls, Emma Goldman's travails in the wake of the First Red Scare, the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani's ode to the lost world of Andalusia and the work of contemporary Eritrean fabulist Ribka Sibhatu.
Edited by poet and translator André Naffis-Sahely, The Heart of a Stranger offers a uniquely varied look at a theme both ancient and urgently contemporary.
Exile lies at the root of our earliest stories. Charting varied experiences of people forced to leave their homes from the ancient world to the present day, The Heart of a Stranger is an anthology of poetry, fiction and non-fiction that journeys through six continents, with over a hundred contributors drawn from twenty-four languages.
Highlights include the wisdom of the 5th century Desert Fathers and Mothers, the Swahili Song of Liyongo, The Flight of the Irish Earls, Emma Goldman's travails in the wake of the First Red Scare, the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani's ode to the lost world of Andalusia and the work of contemporary Eritrean fabulist Ribka Sibhatu.
Edited by poet and translator André Naffis-Sahely, The Heart of a Stranger offers a uniquely varied look at a theme both ancient and urgently contemporary.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe Heart of a Stranger Reviews
3.5
mauatua
Created about 2 years agoShare
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pointofsighs
Created almost 4 years agoShare
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“We who bear scars that bloom and bloom
beneath healed skins,
where are we going?
I ask myself
is home my ghost?
from "The World Grows Blackthorn Walls", Sholeh Wolpé
The Heart of a Stranger is an anthology of literature written in exile, from the original definition of the word to more present ones. André Naffis-Sahely takes us on a journey from exile as features in myths and origin stories to modern day 'exiles' or migrants.
The book follows the format of presenting a brief historical background to each of the six sections, contextualising some of the excerpts, followed by a selection of excerpts of various formats - prose, poetry and non-fiction. As the editor notes, this selection is only meant to be a jumping-off point, and has generally omitted some of the more famous exampes of literature in exile to give a broader range.
But it is a fascinating collection nonetheless. In fact, I would say that it is more so for consisting of authors who may get less attention otherwise (especially in the West). It's one of those anthologies that makes you want to go out and read more of everyone in it. I think that's a hallmark of a good anthology too, that not one entry feels weaker than the rest, and that's certainly the case here.”
Catherine
Created almost 5 years agoShare
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About Andre Naffis-Sahely
André Naffis-Sahely is the author of The Promised Land: Poems from Itinerant Life (Penguin UK, 2017). He is a Visiting Teaching Fellow at Manchester Met's Writing School and is the poetry editor of Ambit magazine. He is from Abu Dhabi, but was born in Venice to an Iranian father and an Italian mother. His translations include over twenty titles of fiction, poetry and nonfiction from French and Italian, including The Last Days by Laurent Seksik and The Crew by Joseph Kessel, both published by Pushkin Press. Several of these translations have been featured as 'books of the year' in the Guardian, Financial Times and NPR.
Other books by Andre Naffis-Sahely
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