These Distant Shores

The act of turning dark memories into words is difficult, especially when not working in one’s mother tongue. The writing in itself — finding the right phrase in a foreign language, then building a narrative — requires enormous strength of purpose. And to put a deeply personal story of persecution, flight, and loss of identity on the page, to be read by strangers anywhere in this volatile and vindictive world, is yet another act of courage.

“Persist. This is the price of freedom.” That is the observation offered by Mary Jo Leddy in her foreword to The Uncaged Voice, a collection of fifteen essays by writers in exile in Canada — writers from Afghanistan, Colombia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Mexico, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Syria, Turkey, and Venezuela. Leddy is the founder of Romero House, the charitable organization in Toronto that for more than thirty years has brought together refugees, supported their asylum claims, provided housing...