When you exit the metro at Christianshavn in Copenhagen you see a number of statues known as the Greenland Monument. They were made from red granite by the Danish sculptor Svend Rathsack after he had…
Highlights
Recent Posts
Keeping warm in cold country
A burning taste of exile
Recommendation: Warsan Shire: Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth. Poems. flipped eye publishing 2011 By Lise Olivarius The first words of Warsan Shire’s collection of poems read: “I have my mother’s mouth and my…
No camps wanted or needed!
Vasilika camp is situated outside of Thessaloniki, in the northern part of Greece. As a part of the European system for dehumanising refugees, the camp is strategically located in a remote and deserted landscape, far…
The border produces the violence that surrounds it
Recommendation: Reece Jones: Violent Borders. Refugees and the Right to Move. Verso 2016 By Lise Olivarius • 2017 Why are states so obsessed with restricting the movements of people, and particularly poor people? This is…
Burning the strait
Can migration and literature be mutually generating ways of escaping reality? Is the paperlessness of undocumented migrants a liberation from constricting identity, or does it rather result in painful identity crises? How is the boat…
Language is a soft and delicate piece of cloth in which every mother wraps her child
How is it possible to leave ones language and start over? When Jila Mossaed came to Sweden in 1986 she had published two novels and five collections of poetry in Farsi. In the following pages…
ICARH and the plight of LGBTs in Nigeria
Nigeria has adopted a range of laws targeting LGBT people. One Nigerian organisation, however, is trying to confront the dire situation by providing healthcare, counselling, and protection of LGBT people. By Loke Bisbjerg Nielsen •…
Who is a refugee?
By Ali Ali • 2016 Don’t panic. This text is not a legal document stating who is eligible for asylum. A refugee without paperwork When they ask me if I am a refugee, I say…
Nr. 56: My name is Ekaterina
Ekaterina Lemonjava is a Georgian journalist and migrants’ rights activist who was imprisoned in 2012 in the Polish detention camp Lesznowola: a closed camp for women, children, and families. The same year, she was deported…
Waiting for Asylum
visAvis brings two poems by Reem Zakzouk, a stateless woman of Palestine, born in Saudi Arabia and currently living in Sweden. In her writing she explores questions of exile and belonging, registration versus recognition and…
