What lies at the intersection of mental health and migration? Canadian, African and Swedish literatures voice different migration experiences and their implications for mental health. Through a comparative analysis of literary works that are concerned with migrants’ psychic suffering, this article highlights how literature can play an important role in the promotion of a deeper understanding of psychological complexities associated with the process of migration, thus offering a more inclusive and culturally sensitive perspective on mental health.
The remarkable international success enjoyed by Canadian writer Miriam Toews contributed to renewing the circulation of narratives on psychic suffering, as shown by her novel All My Puny Sorrows (2014), portraying her sister caught by depressive and suicidal impulses, and by the memoir on the reconstruction of her father’s life, on his psychic unease and on his suicide in Swing Low (2000). Miriam Toews writings have inspired a revision of medical language and of the “stigma” attached to mental health, specifically in Canada. Psychiatrist, poet, educator, activist and provocative thinker Bayo Akomolafe particularly stressed the necessity for the revision of language: “I prefer to use the term shape shifting, not healing! There’s something definitely restorative and probably invisibly conservative about the notion of healing, like restoring a former image.” The “restoration” or “retrieval” would annihilate the time of the illness. Furthermore, Bayo Akomolafe maintains, “the therapeutic context ironically becomes a place that preserves this terrain, this traumasphere if you will. It preserves it, because it focuses on the symptom and allows the syndrome to thrive, right?”
That mental illness, nervous collapse, depressive syndrome as well as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) frequently feature in the works by Italian-Canadian writers is hardly surprising. In particular, the depressive syndrome – which Toews vividly described in recent years – affects many main characters in Italian-Canadian literature. A good example is Caterina Edwards’ The Lion’s Mouth (1982), whose protagonist, Marco, embodies existential inadequacy as father, husband and employee. In Nino Ricci’s Trilogy, Vittorio Innocente, the son of Italian immigrants to Canada, manifests an identity crisis that prompts him to attempt suicide; in The Secret Room (2003) Nino Famà explores the depressive condition of a second-generation youth whose family of immigrants is left in tatters after the parents’ divorce.
A more painful narration is found in Eufemia Fantetti’s memoir My Father, Fortune-Tellers and Me (2019) as well as in her “Alphabet Autobiografica” (November 30, 2015), which depicts a mononuclear family – which has recently moved to Toronto from a small rural village in central-southern Italy – coping with the inexplicable behaviours of the mother, whose schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, as it is called today, is diagnosed late in her life. By then, her behaviour has caused permanent damage to the main character, who suffers from low self-esteem, panic attacks, and who will have to reckon all her life with a monster whose name and nature were unknown to her.
Numerous medical studies confirm that psychic unease and mental illness are more frequent among the immigrants than in the host population. According to these studies, there are specific circumstances which might influence the instability of individuals and the progressive worsening of their health, such as lack of proper wage, lack of social welfare, lack of formation, of jobs, but also perceived discrimination and language difficulties.
For Italian-Canadian immigrants “the ethnopsychiatry of migration cannot ignore the violence and poverty from which the migrants’ bodies flee,” according to Beneduce & Martelli. In “This Is What the Journey Does” (May 17, 2018), Maaza Mengiste’s narration is a case in point, in which the writer observes a man, probably Somali or Eritrean, gesticulating in the middle of an intersection; a madman, one would say. Yet, the author wonders: what traumatic, physical and psychological, experiences happened before or during the journey across the Mediterranean that would have haunted that man, who, in the guise of a modern “resurrected Lazarus,” lost all his points of reference and found himself stranded and alone in a Western city?
In a similar vein, No Violet Bulawayo’s narration in We Need New Names (2013) portrays a man with the mythical name Tshaka Zulu, confined to a clinic in Michigan after selling his cattle in order to be able to afford the journey. Having lost his rural world, which he could rule in his capacity as king, he finds himself an out-of-place Zulu warrior, armed with spear and shield that he wields against the police cars that surround him and urge him to surrender.
Pre- and post-migration conditions can worsen or trigger psychic suffering. This aspect is much more evident in the case of refugees and asylum-seekers, who represent a particularly vulnerable social group. Their experience of migration-induced escape and the forced abandonment of their countries significantly increase the risk of developing psychic disorders, such as PTSD, depression, bipolar identity disorders and, in some extreme cases, suicidal ideation.
Literature offers a unique ground of analysis to explore the psychological dimensions deriving from forced migration. African authors writing in English, such as Helon Habila, and in French, such as Abu Bakr Khaal, employ an incisive and evocative language in order to represent how personal and collective trauma, mourning, loss of identity, loneliness and alienation play an important role in triggering mental health issues.
In the novel African Titanics (2014), Abu Bakr Khaal thematizes the odyssey of migration through the Sahara Desert to the coasts of the Mediterranean, with a focus on Abdar’s experience. The narrator describes migration as a natural process, a “seductive bell” whose “resounding tolls have stirred Africa’s youth from their long slumber.”
Similarly, in Habila’s Travellers (2019) there is a reference to this gravitational force towards the West, as if “some homing device, focused toward Europe, is implanted in their brains and it never stops humming ‘til their feet are on European soil.”
Both authors craft a coral kind of narrative so as to humanise the figure of the migrant, by allowing the different characters to relate their experiences and the complex reasons behind the hard choice of leaving their birthplace. Differently to African Titanics – which focuses on the experience of migration – Habila’s novel also includes the narration of the post-migration phase. The novel, which could also be considered a series of short stories, is divided into six sections and starts in Berlin, where the unnamed main character has moved to with his wife Gina, after she was awarded a prestigious art scholarship. There, Gina realises “Travellers,” an artistic project centred on the creation of migrants’ portraits. Among those who participate in the project is Mark, a transgender man forced to flee. There are other stories such as Manu’s, who used to be a doctor in Libya, and Karim’s, a Somali shopkeeper (both were forced to flee because of the war), Portia’s, who is looking for her brother, and Juma’s, a Nigerian refugee.
Characterised by the capacity to convey to readers the characters’ suffering and traumatic experiences, both African Titanics and Travellers employ a vivid, quasi-poetic language that is able to offer a complex and multifarious view of contemporary migration dynamics, thus raising important questions concerning identity, exile and the search for new beginnings.
In Sweden, the attitudes and narratives concerning mental health have undergone a considerable transformation over the past decades. From being seen as conditions that must be forcefully and often unethically treated, mental health disorders have gained increased attention and acceptance in society over the past decades due to reforms that started in the 1950s. Despite the stigma associated with mental health issues in the past, battles with mental health have been addressed in some well-known classic Swedish literary pieces, such as the novel Crisis/Kris by Karin Boye (1934) and Inferno by August Strindberg (1897).
Contemporary Swedish literature has largely focused on illuminating the mental health of immigrant children and youth, as seen in titles such as Your hands were full of life / Dina händer var fulla av liv (2021) by Suad Alis and Duty / Plikt (2023) by Tyra von Zweigbergks. Biographies describing battles with mental health have also gained increased attention, as seen in titles such as Sometimes I am not well / Ibland mår jag inte så bra (2017) by youtuber Therése Lindgren, and the biography of Tim “Avicii” Bergling titled Tim (2021) by Måns Mosesson. Furthermore, self-help books have gained increased popularity, illustrated by books such as Tove Lundin’s Handbook for a psycho / Handbok för psykon (2012) and Per Carlbring & Åsa Hanell’s No panic / Ingen panik (2011), indicating a wider acceptance and understanding of mental health. However, it is notable that the mental health of older and very old adults is sparsely addressed in literature and society in general, despite a recent study showing an increasing prevalence of depressive disorders among very old adults (85+) over the last 20 years.
In recent years, the increase in literary and critical texts as well as of multimedia contents that deal with psychic suffering are an important index of the progress towards the de-stigmatisation of mental disorders. Yet, it is fundamental to keep doing research by taking into account how psychic disorders associated with the migration process could be influenced by a multiplicity of interconnected factors, such as ethnic origin, age, gender, socioeconomic status and life conditions. Only through in-depth research that pays attention to the specificities of each social category can activities of prevention and care be developed that cater to people affected by psychic disorders.
This essay is the result of a mentoring program within the international research project “Swetaly,” based on cooperation between Sweden and Italy on aging-related themes.
Carmen Concilio is professor of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Modern Cultures at the University of Turin. Aminat Emma Badmus is a PhD candidate at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. Laura Corneliusson, is a postdoctoral fellow, in the Department of Nursing at Umeå University.
