Quand les voix dansent les coeurs galopent

These 25 dramatic poems give a voice to young people – still teenagers, barely adults. We do not know exactly where these girls and boys come from. Yet we recognise images, sounds and objects from many different countries – the ones they were forced to leave behind.

They have endured hardships; they have struggled. The voices dance a little, dancing to pave the way, offering courage, inspiring thoughts that linger, and hopes for the future.

Now they are here – we do not know what this ‘here’ is – and have ‘arrived’. But ‘arrived’ is a complicated word.

Cédric Bonfils’s text brings landscapes and faces to life, letting us hear the words of the past or those that help us move forward. Each text reflects a specific experience, as does the form of the writing (monologue or dialogue between two or more people, a chorus), to recount journeys, destinies, courage and fears, questions, the violence and pain of being a survivor, and the responsibility that comes with it, at barely twenty years of age. And it asks: what kind of life can be built on a new and unknown land?