Helon Habila

How can you tell the story of immigration out of Africa in the second decade of the 21st century? By admitting that the story does not exist - every experience is different and there is a cornucopia of stories, each of them as different as the people who live them are.

The protagonist (and narrator) of this novel is a Nigerian man who got accepted to grad school in the States, got married to an American and while still working on his thesis (because why not take more time than normal), moves show more to Germany for a year with his artist wife. That move disrupts his whole life - from getting tangled into the convoluted and complicated stories of other Africans in Germany to ending up in a refugee camp without documents and finding love again. In between are the stories of immigration and the attempt of people who had been driven away from their own worlds to find new homes - heart breaking, rarely shown in the light of day and even less talked about.

As our protagonist gets to first hear about and then experience the refugee life, he starts reevaluating his own life and the way his own easy path to America (which was not easy at all as anyone who had been through the USCIS system can attest). But it is relatively easy and uncomplicated compared to the people who flee through the Mediterranean on boats that are nowhere near sea-worthy or their lives once they make it into Europe. The fairy tale turns into a nightmare as soon as they get there - and yet, most of them will do it again. And some of them, having accepted that they lost everything, will need to reconcile their old and new lives.

While the novel relied on coincidences and on people doing illogical things a bit too much for my taste, it still works and needs to be read. There are layers of stories and tales in this short-ish novel - more than one may think can exist. They mix and match, using Berlin as a focal point - people may have different dreams and goals but they somehow end up in Berlin - one way or another. And sometimes, a reader needs to stop for a second and remember that while this may be fiction, the stories actually ring through - because each part of them did happen to someone at some time. show less

I really like Habila, his work is beautifully written and powerful. His last short book was non-fiction about the Chibok girls and was hard reading, but this fictionalised account of the refugee crisis I found really difficult to take and read in small chunks. I think partly because I have sat with guys (and families) who have been through some of what is described here, and they made it, and I somehow tell myself that as a way of living with it. But this book puts all of the pain front and show more centre: people losing each other, dealing with racism, poverty, endless waiting. Linking the stories is a Nigerian expat in Berlin, relatively well off, with a visa. He encounters his first refugees as a chance meeting, and then is drawn into individual stories. The book hammers home that this is not a crisis "over there" but is woven into everyday life now in Europe, from the Italian town sinking under the weight of migrant arrivals to the deportation trains crossing Germany to return people to the African coast. Unlike in [Spring], resistance of the ordinary people to the state's choices appears futile.
"Have you ever been on a refugee boat? Pray you never do. Pray your country never breaks up into civil strife and war, that you are never chased out of your home. The boat was really nothing but a death trap, an old, rickety fishing trawler that should have been retired a long time ago. Because we paid five thousand each we got to sit on the upper deck where we could get a bit of fresh air. Some, who were down below in the hold, stacked on top of each other, died within hours of our departure— the children and the pregnant women died first. We saw them bring up the bodies and throw them in the water. Our engine was on fire, the captain wanted to turn back, but we begged him to go on. We would rather die in the water than go back. There was nothing to go back to. show less

Travellers is about privilege, and how sharing a skin colour doesn't necessarily generate empathy. That takes a willingness to listen, and the book records the physical and metaphysical journey of an unnamed Nigerian academic on a fellowship in Berlin, who learns that he has more in common with the refugees on the streets around him than he had thought. His wife, who is African American, is an artist who does not see what is in front of her...

The book is structured around a series of linked show more narratives, featuring a transgender film student of deliberately obscured national origin; a Libyan surgeon searching for his wife and son who were lost when their smuggler's boat capsized in the Mediterranean; and a young Zambian who is seeking answers to the murder of her brother in Berlin. Two catalysts trigger the academic's journey: the first is when his wife turns away a refugee responding to her callout for subjects for her portraits because his face remains unmarked by suffering; the second is when, having followed this refugee and joined a protest against a café owner discriminating against black immigrants, the academic stumbles on a Stolpersteine embedded in the pavements of Berlin to commemorate people wrenched from their homes and transported to oblivion. He realises that home and belonging is not something that anyone can take for granted.

One of the most powerful images in the book is the infamous symbol of the Berlin Wall, which divided a nation and families for generations. In this novel Checkpoint Charlie is a meeting place for the lost. Manu, unwilling to abandon patients who needed him, had left it very late to flee from Libya, and his plans for escape were flimsy.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/07/04/travellers-by-helon-habiba/ show less

One of the richest and most intellectually-driven stories of recent immigration I've read. The male protagonist is Nigerian, married to an American artist who is gently coded as African American but who has reached a level of privilege, when compared with others in the novel (including her husband) that she's disinterested in the sufferings of recently immigrated Africans unless they are subjects for her art projects. When the couple relocates to France for her art, the novel evolves show more organically to a story about the many layers of privilege and suppression that humans are relegated to, depending on their immigration status. Habila does such a good job of depicting both the resigned despair of those without legal status, and the narrow self-interest of those who don't need to worry about such things. show less