REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: YASMINA KHADRA
This week we are very pleased to publish a guest post by Yasmina Khadra, one of the major francophone writers of our time, who will be in London next week for the European Literature Night.
The Migrants by Yasmina Khadra, translated by Emily Boyce
A reaction to the recent tragic deaths of hundreds of migrants, who drowned while attempting to cross the Mediterranean.
Darkness hangs over their faces, and their eyes are white with sleeplessness; and if they seem to embody all the world's miseries, they dream only of sunshine amid the thickest shadows ... They know that only minds are narrow, not hearts. They have decided to rise up against destiny, to bring fate to its knees. Only death is irreversible; while there's a whisper of breath left in them, they will carry on dreaming.
But what do they know of dreams? False jewels in place of the mirages that surround them? Greasy poles built like gallows? They don't care. They want to reach out and touch the light at the end of their tunnel at the risk of getting burned, or finding themselves in hell. Nothing ventured, nothing gained ... and having never gained a thing, what do they have to lose? What do they know of tragic deaths in raging waters far out at sea, rafts of the Medusa disappearing in the mists, wretched existences in lands of plenty, blackmarket work in appalling conditions, broken nights in stinking digs, being treated as outcasts, forced to flee under a barrage of hateful looks, hurtful words and racist rants? Not a lot ... Or perhaps they refuse to see what is staring them in the face: shipwrecks rotting on far-away shores like so many shattered hopes; detention centres where, like kennels, the 'willing' prisoners are penned in, kept down, like scum; a few miracle cases offering themselves to the TV screens, adding grist to the mill of politicos desperate for an audience ... They don't give a damn! They have been told so many tantalising lies and strung so many stories, heard such praises heaped on these enlightened lands where opportunity blooms at every turn and you have only to bend to reap your own redemption, that they take flights of fancy at face value. And why shouldn't they? When every other option has gone out the window, isn't hope rekindled through pipe dreams? When you're falling apart under the shadow of disappointment, doesn't fantasy give you something to live for?
After all, what's the use in waiting for something that will never happen? Miracles only answer those who call them. Stay where they are and they'll rot like fallen fruit, slowly melting into oblivion. They have to leave, they tell themselves in no uncertain terms. Leaving means being reborn somewhere else, in a place where much is forbidden, but not hope...
So they laugh in the face of the dangers that await them, the host of disappointments lurking around every corner ... Nothing ventured, nothing gained ... and having never gained a thing, what do they have to lose? So off they go. Because happiness is somewhere else, and they have to go and look for it. Because time waits for no man, and so they had better catch it up, even if they have to turn back empty-handed when they do. Mamadou's leaving because there are so many mouths to feed at home, he can no longer go on giving up his share. Adama's leaving because the griot, who never gets it wrong, has read the signs and told him, 'I don't know what you'll find abroad, but there's damn all for you here.' Salim's leaving because his childhood friend has turned his luck around: he's over there, he has succeeded and he's just waiting to get his papers in order. 'It's not a walk in the park,' he writes on a page torn from a school exercise book, 'but I've had about as many ups as downs. It's not exactly how I thought it would be, but at least when you're here you put your life and soul into it, and that alone makes it worth the trip and the kicks in the ass along the way.' Youssoufou's leaving because the people smuggler talked him into it. He's offering him the moon for a thousand euros. He'll whizz him across the Algerian Sahara as if he was on roller skates, pass the Hamada without a hitch, and cross borders like a knife through butter; he's already greased the palms of the customs officials and security guards. And when the sea unfurls its blue carpet of dreams, the smuggler will choose him the safest craft and the shrewdest captain, and the happy shores where the roads are lined with dreams, where the course of destiny can be switched with the click of a finger, will lie at Youssoufou's feet! Ewegh's leaving because for days and days, for light years, perhaps, he has had the same feeling on crawling out of his hole: that of living a recurring nightmare of loss, emptiness, madness, and this thing he can't put his finger on that's eating away at him and making him feel he is falling apart a little more every moment. His father resents him for standing around, doing nothing but getting older. His mother can't understand why she carried him in her belly for nine months, like a phantom pregnancy, only to give birth to thin air. As for Amir, he's leaving to live. Until now he's done nothing but ferment. Now he wants to breathe fresh air. You only live once, so you might as well live fully. He's packed his vests and underpants and thrown in a change of trainers because the beaten tracks are as sharp as razors underfoot; a photo of his mother to buck him up and another of his girlfriend because he'll be back some day, preferably with a fast car, glowing cheeks and a well-filled belly, to thumb his nose at those who didn't rate his chances.
If they don't all know where they're going, they know exactly what they're running away from. They've had enough of melting into their own shadows; they refuse to keep twiddling their thumbs until the skin's gone from their hands. They say unhappiness is good for something; and they are good for nothing. How is it that they can be less than unhappiness, when all they want is to make their loved ones happy? Don't track them like dangerous animals, stop treating them like a natural disaster, don't crucify them on their own crosses; they have only come in order to survive, to put up with the nasty jobs that disgust you, to keep the shadows company under your grand doorways, to believe as you do in a brighter future, if not in glorious Technicolor. If you won't believe me, enter the world of wasted time, vain sacrifice and cursed legacies, and tell yourself that the eyes that are watching you, the faces smiling at you, the children playing in the dust, the tumbledown slums and daily lot of miseries, are reflecting your own image back at you. Because you are their image too, the image they form of themselves as they float on a sea of misfortune, the image that pops into their heads every time they close their eyes and helps keep them going, to raise their heads and fill the horizon with everything the society of their birth has stolen from them. Because the border that stands between you, the oceans and seas that pull you apart, are only as thick as the mirror before which you stand looking at them and behind which they stand looking back at you.
Yasmina Khadra or Mohamed Moulessehoul?
You should know this upfront: Yasmina Khadra, contrary to what his name suggests, is not a woman. Yasmina Khadra is the pseudonym of Algerian author Mohamed Moulessehoul, who chose to write under his wife’s name to avoid censorship while serving as an army officer. In 2001, Yasmina Khadra and his family moved to Paris, where he became in 2007 director of the Algerian Cultural Center. He is the author of more than 20 novels, including The Swallows of Kabul and The Attack, both shortlisted for the IMPAC literary award.
Yasmina Khadra in London
The 7th European Literature Night’s committee has shortlisted 6 authors among the best of Europe – and among them is Khadra, for his novel The African Equation (Gallic Books). The event will be held at the British Library on Wednesday 13 May and you can book your ticket here.
The French Institute will also celebrate the writer on Tuesday 12 May with an event from book to cinema: there will be a screening of The Attack, a brilliant adaptation of Khadra’s novel, followed by a Q&A with the author. Yasmina Khadra will do a book signing, so get your ticket!
The African Equation is our Book of the Week, enter the competition on Facebook and Twitter!