Book Review: Many Roads

Julie Primon

This is an ambitious project, set out clearly by Faeeza Jasdanwalla-Williams in the introduction: ‘The main aim of this book has been to highlight […] voices of immigrant women who have simply been going about their daily lives in a new country, trying to fit in.’

Putting the book together, she tells us, wasn’t without its challenges, whether it was reaching out to immigrant communities to find unknown women and untold stories, or overcoming the language barrier when contributors were not comfortable using English.

Diversity

The anthology’s twenty-five stories form a mosaic of Welsh immigrants’ experiences.

The book’s diversity is one of its strengths: from the perilous journey of an Iraqi refugee and her family through Belarus, Poland and France, to a Namibian woman fleeing her brother’s sexual violence, only to find herself caught in a sex trafficking ring in Turkey, to a Zimbabwean immigrant’s story of teen pregnancy and self-discovery in the UK, the tales contained in Many Roads offer eye-opening insight into what it means to be uprooted from your own culture and have to start anew elsewhere.

While the book celebrates multiculturalism (an example is the touching story of Welsh traditions being incorporated into Zambia-native Osanna’s wedding day in Llanddeusant, which made her feel ‘truly part of the community,’), and while Swansea, Aberystwyth, Cardiff, or the Rhondda are praised as welcoming places across the pages of the book, the anthology’s narrators also express difficulties in settling in, a sense of isolation when they arrived, unable to speak the language, a number of them struggling with the UK’s refugee system.

Heartbreaking

Mentioned, also, is the difficulty of sitting between two cultures, of missing a place where you no longer belong while struggling to feel at home in new surroundings.

Each story is different, but themes crop again and again: worry about one’s family, the need to survive, the desire for community, for belonging.

These are human, inspiring, at times heartbreaking stories of departure and arrival, of being wrenched away from loved ones, of making a new home in a strange place.

One thing is clear upon finishing this anthology: talking about ‘refugees’ or ‘immigrants’ in general terms is impossible. Each individual narrative in this book is vivid and distinct, fraught with its own challenges and emotions.

This is a book that you will feel richer for reading, and that will remain with you long after you’ve put it down.

This is review was first published on www.gwales.com – you can buy a copy of Many Roads here.