Travellers

(Paperback)

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Description

Poignant and beautifully sculpted, a novel about exile, identity and the many kinds of travellers moving through our modern world Modern Europe is a melting pot of migrating souls- among them a Nigerian American couple on a prestigious arts fellowship, a transgender film student seeking the freedom of authenticity, a Libyan doctor who lost his wife and child in the waters of the Mediterranean, and a Somalian shopkeeper trying to save his young daughter from forced marriage. And, though the divide between the self-chosen exiles and those who are forced to leave home may feel solid, in reality such boundaries are tenuous, shifting, and frighteningly soluble. Moving from a Berlin nightclub to a Sicilian refugee camp to the London apartment of a Malawian poet, Helon Habila evokes a rich mosaic of migrant experiences. And through his characters' interconnecting fates, he traces the extraordinary pilgrimages we all might make in pursuit of home.

Reviews

Helon Habila's fourth novel has it all - intelligence, tragedy, poetry, love, intimacy, compassion and a serious, soulful, arms-wide engagement with one of the most acute human concerns of our age: the refugee crisis... * The Guardian *
A wonderful gem. . . Heartbreaking but equally life-affirming tales that beautifully connect and intertwine, leaving us longing for more -- Elif Shafak
Once I started reading Travellers, I couldn't stop. With power and control, it plunges the reader into a maze of lives that crisscross between Africa and Europe...The novel has all the weight of art with the sting of breaking news. It faces the urgent questions of our times and doesn't settle for easy answers...it is indeed Habila at his best. * Leila Aboulela *
Urgent, deeply empathetic, and resisting easy answers, TRAVELERS follows the interconnected lives of African immigrants and refugees in Europe and examines the meanings of freedom, diaspora and home. Habila is a masterful storyteller, and this novel a riveting testament to the power of fiction.
Describing worlds and convergences that are unforgettable, Helon Habila writes of individual lives - pulled apart by our wars, our failed states and our deepest fears - with insight and searing compassion * Madeleine Thien *
At once intimate and expansive, Travellers captivated me from the very first pages * Aminatta Forna *
a parable of our times and Habila tells it beautifully, shedding poignant light on the world of the dispossessed and the stateless. * Mail on Sunday *
Adroitly teasing out the rich quiddity of his characters' diverse journeys, he instead makes the simple yet valuable point that refugees' lives are as irreducibly complex as anyone else's. * The Observer *
A quietly haunting novel that captures the untethered, unreal nature of migrant and refugee existence. * Metro *
Yarns of persecution, paranoia, even manslaughter, unspool across its patchwork pattern. Habila tells them with cunning, flair and a sleight-of-hand that lightens even the gloomiest scenes. * The Spectator *
In an era of mass migration, Habila suggests, stories are a common ground, a means of making ourselves at home with our homelessness. * Literary Review *

Author Bio

Helon Habila is the author of Oil on Water, Measuring Time, Waiting for an Angel, andThe Chibok Girls. He is professor of creative writing at George Mason University and lives in Virginia with his wife and three children.