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Jackie Kay (G) and Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon (D) at the Edinburgh Book Festival, August 2016. Pako Mera / Barcroft Images / Barcroft Media via Getty Images

Scotland is a literary nation. Its capital was named in 2004 first City of Literature by Unesco. "You can not escape literature in Edinburgh," says Ali Bowden, director of the Edinburgh City of Literature Foundation. "The words are engraved in the paving stones on the floor and on the walls of buildings". So what's more normal than having a national poet? Jackie Kay has been nominated for this "demanding job", as described by Ali Bowden. "Joyful and charismatic", she is unanimous.

The times are changing. Not so long ago, Scotland was a conservative Presbyterian nation. Today, she has become the most gay friendly nation in Europe, according to Newseek . Opposition leader Ruth Davidson is openly lesbian and is expecting a baby with her partner. Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon is a woman. And Jackie Kay is all this at the same time: the current Makar, title of Scotland's national poet of 2016 and until 2020, is a Métis and lesbian woman, literary mouthpiece of the nation, and one of the symbols times that change.

Highland mother and Nigerian Igbo father Kay adopted baby

" I never thought, when I was young, that I could have become a Makar one day. Scotland has evolved tremendously, especially in terms of LGBT rights, "says Jackie Kay, who was attending two events at the end of August as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival: one on the strength of difference , and another titled Stories of refugees . " I think we have Nicola Sturgeon, a talented politician, who says that refugees and people of all backgrounds are welcome here. It changes from Scotland where I grew up . "

Jackie Kay was born in 1961 in Edinburgh, a mother from the Highlands, and a Nigerian igbo father, met at the University of Aberdeen. She was adopted, still a baby, by militant communist parents, and spent all her childhood in Glasgow - impossible not to hear her so distinctive Glaswege accent. However, she says that she is often asked where she comes from, as in the poem In my country ( In my country - in the original, in English) : " They do not really want to listen to my voice because they are too busy to see my face . "

Jackie Kay's childhood was made up of encounters with her parents' militant friends, songs invented in the car during the many road trips in Scotland, and lots of laughter, as she tells in her autobiography, Red Dust Road. . " My parents had a very creative use of the language, and listening to my mother telling stories was an inspiration ."

The neo-Nazis of British Movement threatened her directly in posters

She says she also owes her humor and sense of derision to her mother. In Red Dust Road , Jackie Kay recounts the meeting with his biological father, who became an ultra-religious university professor in Nigeria. The first meeting, filled with emotion, also brought disappointments, especially when he explained that she, " her sin ", was to remain a secret for her new family. She could only laugh at it when her mother, calling her from Abuja, told her, " God, you've saved your skin ! "

The author experienced several other gloomy moments, particularly in her student life in the 1980s, as when the neo-Nazi organization British Movement posted posters threatening her directly on the campus of the University of Stirling. Or, while the extreme right was rising in England, she and her friends suffered racist aggression on the London Underground ... in general indifference. Today, the poet believes that " laughing at something is taking away some of its power. Satire and irony help to cope with difficult situations . "

Today, the Makar - whose role of medieval origin was revived in the early 2000s - wants to make poetry more visible and more present in everyday life. " Literature opens doors and offers comfort and solidarity ," she says. It is a ray of light in this dark era. Poets give a voice to those who do not have one .

English, Gaelic, Scots, Arcadian, Doric ... She celebrates Scottish poetry in all languages

She has written and recited poems at the opening ceremony of the Scottish Parliament in 2016 , the inauguration of the Queensferry Bridge in 2017 , and for all newborns in Scotland who receive a baby box. " The desire to build bridges is deeper than the rivers they span, " she recited, and " it takes more than one language to tell a story ." This is why Jackie Kay celebrates Scottish poetry in all the languages ​​of the country: English, Gaelic, Scots, Arcadian or Doric ... As a way to say loud and clear l multiple identity of Scotland and Scots.

The multiplicity of identities is a cross-cutting theme in modern Scottish literature. At the Book Festival, novelist Ali Smith asked: " Why would we want to be one thing when we are so multiple ? Why would we want to refuse our multiplicity ? "

" Everyone has to recover this complexity "

For Jackie Kay, growing up as a Métis child in an environment where she was the only one did not give her the choice: she had to think about who she was, where she came from, and how she could be accepted. " The people in my case develop a complexity, a double self, and it is a very interesting asset for a writer ." But this complexity does not only concern people of color, foreigners or outsiders. " Everyone needs to find this complexity. It is more important than ever to remember, at this time of Brexit and Trump. "

Jackie Kay's values, interspersed with her poems and novels, are sharing, openness and joy - always contagious as we laugh while reading and listening to her. Her poem, eminently optimistic, is political and she assumes it: by calling into question " the cliche Scottish culture, made of haggis and shortbread ", she encourages Scotland to accept and embrace its diversity.