The Uncaged Voice: Stories by Writers in Exile

Freedom, truth, and justice are taken for granted in some countries. In others, they are aspirational. And yet in others, they are deemed justification for persecution, punishment, and silence.

Through first-person essays and short stories, the contributors to The Uncaged Voice share their brutal yet heart-rending tales of fleeing the oppressive regimes of their homelands, where freedom of expression and the press is an ideal, not a reality, and where totalitarian forces attempt to subjugate, if not annihilate, all forms of dissention.

From war correspondents reporting across dangerous "no-go zones," to female journalists escaping conservative and patriarchal tyranny, to independent newspaper editors risking imprisonment or worse to criticize authoritarian states -- these fifteen writers-in-exile continue to write, sharing both the suppressed truths of their past and the hopes they have for the future in Canada, their chosen place of asylum.

With introductions by editor Keith Ross Leckie and Mary Jo Leddy, The Uncaged Voice tells often-silenced stories, not only of censorship and persecution, but also of the strength and resilience of those unwavering in their fight for the freedom of expression.

Contributors include: Aaron Berhane, Gezahegn Mekonnen Demissie, Alexander Duarte, Ava Homa, Abdulrahman Matar, Ilamaran Nagarasa, Luis Horacio Nájera, Kiran Nazish, Pedro A. Restrepo, Maria Saba, Kaziwa Salih, Mahdi Saremifar, Bilal Sarwary, Savithri, and Arzu Yildiz.

Aaron Berhane was the founder and editor-in-chief of the largest independent newspaper in the violent dictatorship of Eritrea. When the government ordered a crackdown on journalists, Aaron saw a dozen of his friends and colleagues arrested and imprisoned without legal recourse or medical aid. All are still in prison or dead. He was able to escape across the border into Sudan under a hail of bullets from border guards and eventually arrived in Canada. Aaron founded Meftih, a newspaper for the Eritrean community in Canada, campaigned for his fellow journalists who were still imprisoned in Eritrea, completed a master's degree at Ryerson University, became a professor at George Brown College, and was leader of the Writers-in-Exile Committee of PEN Canada. On May 1, 2021, Aaron suddenly, tragically passed away from covid-19 at the age of fifty-one, leaving behind his wife and three children.

Gezahegn Mekonnen Demissie is an Ethiopian journalist and filmmaker, one of the founding members of PEN Ethiopia, and Executive Director of Bridge Entertainment. He currently lives in Toronto, Canada, where he publishes the community journal, and radio show/podcast, New Perspective. He is a current board member and the leader of PEN Canada's Writers-in-Exile community.

Alexander Duarte is a Venezuelan journalist with degrees in Social Communications and in Politics and International Law. Alexander began working as a journalist in 1992 at El Nacional, one of the most important newspapers in Venezuela, as a press and then radio reporter, and then in 2001 became director of Media and Public Relations with the Attorney General of Venezuela. In 2019, as conditions for journalists in the country deteriorated and he found his life in danger, he escaped Venezuela with his family and they came to Canada as refugees.

Ava Homa is an award-winning Kurdish-Canadian writer and activist. Her debut novel, Daughters of Smoke and Fire (HarperCollins), won the 2020 Silver Nautilus Award for fiction and was a finalist for the 2022 William Saroyan International Writing Prize. Her book of short stories Echoes from the Other Land was nominated for the 2011 Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize. Homa's articles have appeared in The Globe and Mail, BBC, Toronto Star, Literary Hub, and Literary Review of Canada, among many others. Ava holds a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Windsor.

Dishaly Ilamaran is a dedicated student at Carleton University, pursuing a dual degree in Journalism and Law. Hailing from Canada since 2016, she is the daughter of Ilamaran Nagarasa. With a passion for storytelling and legal advocacy, Dishaly is committed to weaving together her cultural roots and academic pursuits in her journey of learning and growth.

Abdulrahman Matar is a Canadian/Syrian journalist, novelist, and poet. He has written five books. He has been a political detainee five times for his opinions and writings critical of government policies. Abdulrahman is a member of PEN Canada and the Writers in Exile collective. He is a member of the Board of the Syrian Writers Association and managing editor of Awraq magazine. He is the founder and director of the Syrian Mediterranean Cultural Forum -- Toronto. It is a cultural forum concerned with introducing Arab and Mediterranean creators residing in Canada and their various literary and artistic works to Canadian society. The Forum has organized important cultural events across Ontario. Abdulrahman is the winner of the Empowering Communities Award: Commitment to the Arts, Multicultural Festival / Toronto 2021.

Ilamaran Nagarasa, known as Maran, is a freelance journalist, human rights activist, and refugee advocate who lives with his family in Toronto. Originally from Sri Lanka, Maran arrived in Canada in 2009 after travelling with seventy-five other refugees on the boat Ocean Lady. He, along with many others, was arrested on suspicion of being a Tamil terrorist and was imprisoned for months without charges before his release. After seven years of struggle with immigration bureaucracy, he was finally allowed to bring his young family to Canada. Over the past twenty years, Maran has been active in reporting human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, including providing testimony at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 2015. He currently works for a Toronto-based multicultural radio and television company as a news editor.

Luis Horacio Nájera is an award-winning journalist who fled to Canada in 2008 after receiving death threats for reporting on drug cartels and corruption along the U.S.-Mexico border. Despite completing two master's degrees, publishing in national newspapers, and co-authoring three books while in exile, Nájera still struggles with unemployment.

Kiran Nazish is a renowned international journalist who started her career in Pakistan and covered conflict and human rights around the world for two decades. She worked as a foreign correspondent covering all the post 9/11 wars, including in the Middle East and South Asia. Nazish founded and is the Director of the Coalition For Women In Journalism, a worldwide support organization for women and non-binary journalists.

Pedro A. Restrepo is a published writer, journalist, poet, and entrepreneur who won national recognition in literature and art, granted by Colombia's Ministry of Education in 2002. From a very early age, he loved reading and writing. He also loved learning about new cultures and soon became proficient in several languages including English, German, Italian, and French. He fled his beloved Colombia with his family when his father was murdered for his political beliefs.

An Ottawa-based writer, storyteller, and arts educator, Maria Saba was born and raised in Iran. Writing in both English and Farsi, she has published three books and over a hundred articles, interviews, and stories in four continents. Maria's short story manuscript, "My First Friend," was a semi-finalist for the Iowa Short Fiction Prize, and the title story, published in Scoundrel Time, won the Editor's Choice Award and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her novella The Secret of Names was longlisted for the 2020 Disquiet Literary Prize. Maria has served on various arts and literature juries and is the recipient of grants in English literature from Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, Saskatchewan Arts Board, and the City of Ottawa. She attended Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Banff Writing Studio and residencies at Banff, the Al Purdy a-Frame in Ameliasburgh, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. She recently won the PEN Canada Scholarship and the Wallace Stegner Grant for the arts. Currently Maria is working on her novel There You Are.

Kaziwa Salih is an anthropologist who holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Studies from Queen's University in Canada with a focus on the cultural sociology of genocidal violence against the Kurds in Iraq. After publishing a predictive article about the emergence of Islamic radicalism such as ISIS in her magazine Nivar, Salih was imprisoned by the Kurdish authorities. On her release, she fled the country. She is the award-winning author of several fiction and non-fiction books. Salih was a founder and editor-in-chief of two journals, Nivar and Newkar. Her research interests include Genocide Studies, Cultural-Sociology and Cultural-Psychology of Violence, Migration and Displacement, Kurdish Studies, Middle East Politics and Women's Identity, Ethnic Conflicts, State and Non-State Actors, and Yazidi Affairs.

Mahdi Saremifar is an Iranian journalist. He was a science correspondent for Hamshahri, one of the most read newspapers in Iran, and editor- in-chief of an Iranian popular science magazine. He was forced to leave Iran when the science he was reporting conflicted with the doctrines of the Supreme Leader.

Bilal Sarwary is an Afghan journalist who has worked extensively with Western media outlets over the last twenty years in Afghanistan including the BBC for fourteen years. He is an independent scholar majoring in central linkages between warfare, drugs, and terrorism, and the FARC-ification of the Taliban. Bilal graduated in 2010 from Middlebury College in Vermont. Bilal was evacuated in August 2021 after the Taliban took over Afghanistan. He lives with his family in Toronto. Bilal is fluent in Pashto, Dari, Urdu, and English.

Savithri is a freelance journalist and author with a passion for writing about politics and exposing human rights violations. She is currently a Ph.D. student in English Philosophy at the University of Barcelona. Savithri grew up in Kerala, a southwestern coastal state in India. After suffering for years in an arranged, abusive marriage, she left the country in 2010, unable to adapt to the patriarchal tendencies and conservatism of Indian society. In Barcelona, Savithri is active in the Indian publishing sector as a translator, columnist, and novelist.

Arzu Yildiz is a Turkish-born, award-winning investigative journalist, senior reporter, editor, public speaker, and author of four books. She built a career at the liberal, democratic daily Taraf newspaper where she reported on human rights issues, corruption, and illegal gun trafficking. Jailed and stripped of legal guardianship of her children for reporting on the trial of state prosecutors, Yildiz spent five months in hiding after a government crackdown on press freedom before fleeing to Canada via Greece.