Always a Banishment
by Gabriela Couturier
Against the backdrop of recent large migrations to Europe, Always A Banishment is the real story of a little migration that originates in late nineteenth-century France. Forced by poverty, driven by hope, three peasants from the Upper Savoy see in the Veracruz coasts of Mexico the possible answer to their desperate situation. Betrayals, far distances, luck and nature play, then more than ever, a decisive role in the fortunes of migrants, who see their homeland, their people and their customs fade away before they can carve a place for themselves in Mexican lands. Based on the actual letters sent by migrants, this novel remembers a reality that shows that every migration story, regardless of its outcome, is Always A Banishment.