THE BOOK CLUB x THE EYES

J’exile, first-person narratives.

© Laura Chen 

Sabyl Ghoussoub & Oleñka Carrasco were Marie Richeux’s guests at the Book Club to discuss stories of exile through the magazine The Eyes “J’exile” carte blanche to Sabyl Ghoussoub and the book “Patria” by Olenka Carrasco.

A program you can now listen on France Culture!

Exile as a place for storytelling

Oleñka Carrasco, photographer: “For me, exile is in a space of my memory, it has nothing to do with a physical place. So the question is, how do you construct yourself in such a space? I think it’s through storytelling and, as far as I’m concerned, exile is something you tell: you can’t romanticize exile.”

True exile or the impossibility of return

Sabyl Ghoussoub explains his definition of exile: “To come back to the word ‘exile’ and to what you were saying about exilience, there was a difficulty in this issue, because as soon as we deal with the question of exile, we have to know who can call themselves exiled? I think very few people on earth can’t go home, and for me, the truly exiled person is the one who can’t go home. It’s impossible because it’s too dangerous. But I can go back to Lebanon.