The Heart of a Stranger: An Anthology of Exile Literature

by André Naffis-Sahely (Editor )

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 and with an introduction by famed Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o, The Heart of a Stranger offers a uniquely varied look at a theme both ancient and urgently contemporary.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Anthologies, Essays, Short Stories

352 pages, Paperback

First published August 29, 2019

Reviews

[charlotte, · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Andie Bassett · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very well written and extremely interesting, I’m not a person who typically annotated and analysis books on the first read but I could not help myself bookmarking, highlighting and writing the meaning I found in the poetry and stories. I will say a favourite writing of mine was café des exilés - George W. Cable, it was beautiful. However, the reason I have given it a lower rating is simply a personal matter, I am currently 16 and while my age has nothing to do with my reading ability, it did mean some parts were harder to read being in old English and translated, some parts just didn’t make sense to me, in addition, I have barely lived so to be reading a book on peoples experiences with exile while I am not informed on the world and it’s workings just made it difficult to find the true meaning and beauty in the words. This is a book I will come back to when I am older and I hope to find more beauty within these pages than I do now.

[Harry · Rating 2 out of 5]

In fairness to Mr Naffis-Sahely, I may well just not be someone who “gets” anthologies. Are you meant to read them from cover to cover? Are you meant to dip in and out more or less at random? Are you meant to buy them because they contain a poem you already know you like, and then sort of read around that one as and when you feel like it? I don’t know—I read this one from cover to cover.

It was dull. Worse than that, it was incoherent. Naffis-Sahely tells us in his afterword (because that’s where you tell people what you’re trying to do with the book they’re about to read) that his goal was to piece together something like a “world history of exile”. In consequence the fragments in this book are supposed to hang together in a rough chronology: mythological exiles from Ancient Egypt through to modern refugees. It... doesn’t really work. The historical context of a piece of poetry is, surely, subordinate to the emotions and meanings it evokes? A more coherent layout might have collected Babylonian, Córdoban Moorish, Royalist French and modern Abkhazian literatures in order to connect the humanity of the refugee experience (as a form of exile) across the broad sweep of human history. Instead we’ve got vaguely disconnected (but here and there vaguely connected—the chronologically “1850-1950” bit is basically all about anarchists and communists, and damn the millions of WWI exiles) bits of poetry and prose. Some of them are impactful, some not. The sum product is boring.

[Kaitlyn Kline Voz · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read that is ordered in a thoughtful manner and with helpful context and explanations between sections. I am in love with the depth and variety of selections Naffis-Sahely chose to include. This book just became my new favorite among edited collections.

[Paul Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some 5* some 1* in this eclectic anthology which looks at exile from a variety of standpoints and eras.