[REVIEW] But It’s a Long Way by Frédérique Guétat-Liviani (translated by Nathanaël)

(Nightboat Books, 2018)

REVIEW BY GABINO IGLESIAS

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Most poetry about interstitial spaces and borders explores the permeability of imagined borders, the effects of different cultures and languages on psychological and emotional states, and the (im)possibility of (un)traveling back and forth, of finding home again. Some, however, go further than that and tackle all of it at once while simultaneously inhabiting, literally, the dividing line between languages and a multiplicity of places. In the case of Frédérique Guétat-Liviani’s But It’s a Long Way, the writing is at once an exploration of borders, a scream against a past filled with the nonsense that usually leads to migration, and a strange biography of a life spent on liminal spaces.

Despite being about many things, But It’s a Long Way is mainly about the multiplicity of borders. Language and cultures are borders. People are borders. Poverty is a border. Everything is a border. Everything is a thing that separates humans in some way. They are created, suffered, celebrated, and forgotten. They change people and force them into actions that may or may not want. Of all the things they are, however, the most important one is constructed. Recognizing that they are constructed is one of the biggest steps a person can give toward a better understanding of how borders work, but it can also lead to frustration for a variety of reasons. Guétat-Liviani’demonstrates a deep understanding of this bizarre frailty/impenetrability that changes depending on a plethora of sociopolitical elements:

borders/they are forgotten/when/it’s

to judge a president/and then later/they are put back/to prevent

people from crossing

But borders are more than just dividing lines that impede free movement. They are more than places where one nation ends and another one begins. They are more than geographical spots where cultures may be different and a different language may be spoken. Borders, in this book, are looked at in all of their significance, and that means they are also seen as problematic sociopolitical spaces and places where bad things happen merely because of what separation entails:

sometimes/there are even wars/because of/the separations

there are also/the borders you can’t see/between arabs and

the racist French/it comes/from generalization/the terrorists

they say you have to kill/in the name of islam/so people believe

all muslims/are like that/but there’s also racism

on the part of/maghrebians/toward/others

Guétat-Liviani’ writes about Otherness with knowledge and authenticity. This book is at once a travelogue, a diary, and a mosaic biography. The reader is pulled by words through an epic journey that covers France, Spain, Albania, Morocco, Kosovo, Serbia, Chlef, Algiers, Belgium, England, and more. With the geographical changes come emotional ones, but also languages, and this book is packed with people who speak French, Arabic, Spanish, English, and Turkish. These traveling, languages, and experiences frame an underlying narrative about perpetual otherness, a unique story about exile that is at once personal and universal.

The second part of this book is in French. As someone who writes bilingual fiction, I loved that. Real discussions about being outsiders/exiles/migrants can’t be had solely in one language, especially when the artist initiating the discussion or sharing his or her experiences isn’t a native English speaker. In that regard, the second half of the book is a celebration of difference that also makes a statement: language matters when discussing other cultures.

While there is much to like about this book, perhaps the most surprising element is the amount of hope packed into its pages. Yes, there is pain, loss, and coping, but the heart of the narrative, just like that of the poet, are full of beauty:

being kind/being mean/it’s a choice/it has nothing to do/with origins

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Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist and book reviewer living in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Zero Saints and Coyote Songs. He is the book review editor for Pank Magazine, and a columnist at LitReactor. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.