Welcome readers,
To our monthly discussion of the literature of the world! Twice a month, we'll post a new country for you to recommend literature from with the caveat that it must have been written by someone from that country (i.e. Shogun by James Clavell is a great book but wouldn't be included in Japanese literature).
June 20 was World Refugee Day. Every day, war forces men, women, and children to flee their homes, their cities, and their countries. From the European refugess of World War I a century ago to the Palestinian refugees of today, an untold number of families have been forced to leave the places of their birth and reestablish themselves in foreign lands where they know neither the language nor the culture. In honor, please use this thread to discuss your favorite literature written by stateless authors.
If you'd like to read our previous discussions of the literature of the world please visit the literature of the world section of our wiki.
Thank you and enjoy!
by AutoModerator
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I loved No Friend But The Mountains by Behrouz Boochani, which was composed mostly via WhatsApp on several phones that were smuggled to him in Australia’s Manus Island “detention centre” (refugee internment camp).
Unfortunately, his translator decided that even though Boochani wrote the book as prose, he should “add poetry” to the translation by taking seemingly random paragraphs of the book and adding random line breaks to make them into Rupi Kaur-style poetry. Boochani’s writing still comes across, but the translator poorly altering his style is pretty annoying when it happens.
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Li Bai wasn’t stateless IIRC, but this poem was included in *Anthology of Exile* and I think it will resonate with anybody who can’t return home:
“Before my bed the bright moon’s glow,
seems like frost on the ground.
I raise my head and gaze at the bright moon,
I lower my head and think of home.”