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A Novel
by Helon Habila
Book Reviewed by:A startlingly imaginative exploration of the African diaspora in Europe, by one of our most acclaimed international writers.
Award-winning author Helon Habila has been described as "a courageous tale teller with an uncompromising vision…a major talent" (Rawi Hage). His new novel Travelers is a life-changing encounter with those who have been uprooted by war or aspiration, fear or hope.
A Nigerian graduate student who has made his home in America knows what it means to strike out for new shores. When his wife proposes that he accompany her to Berlin, where she has been awarded a prestigious arts fellowship, he has his reservations: "I knew every departure is a death, every return a rebirth. Most changes happen unplanned, and they always leave a scar."
In Berlin, Habila's central character finds himself thrown into contact with a community of African immigrants and refugees whose lives previously seemed distant from his own, but to which he is increasingly drawn. The walls between his privileged, secure existence and the stories of these other Africans on the move soon crumble, and his sense of identity begins to dissolve as he finds that he can no longer separate himself from others' horrors, or from Africa.
A lean, expansive, heart-rending exploration of loss and of connection, Travelers inscribes unforgettable signposts―both unsettling and luminous―marking the universal journey in pursuit of love and home.
1
We came to Berlin in the fall of 2012, and at first everything was fine. We lived on Vogelstrasse, next to a park. Across the road was an Apotheke, and next to that a retirement home, and next to that a residential school for orphans. The school was once a home for single mothers, but eventually the mothers moved on and only the children were left. The school is made up of two cheerless structures— one noticeably newer than the other— behind waist- high cinder- block walls and giant fir trees. In the evenings the children ran in the park, jumping on trampolines and kicking around balls, their voices cutting through the frigid air clear as the bell ringing. In the mornings they sat in the courtyard behind the short fence to craft wooden animals and osier baskets under the watchful eyes of their minders. Once, out early with Gina, one of the boys, anywhere between the ages of eight and ten, sighted us and rushed to the low wall, he leaned over the top, almost vaulting over...
Helon Habila is a writer of quiet power. His characters take you into their lives with the simple telling of their quest for a human connection, a place to make a living for themselves and their families (Claire M). It was an absolute honor to read this book and a double honor to review it. The author's style is so flawless and transparent that it disappears; you feel you're suddenly in the very scene that is unfolding (Elizabeth T)...continued
Full Review
(711 words)
(Reviewed by First Impressions Reviewers).
Aminatta Forna, author of Happiness and The Memory of Love
At once intimate and expansive, Travelers captivated me from the very first pages. Elliot Ackerman, author of Waiting for Eden
I enjoyed Travelers immensely. Habila has written a pressure cooker of a story, an urgent novel that contends with the rootlessness of our world. Leila Aboulela, author of The Kindness of Enemies and Elsewhere, Home
Once I started reading Travelers, I couldn't stop. It's an unsettling book that faces the urgent questions of our times and doesn't settle for easy answers. Yet the resilience of the characters, the mature decision to avoid melodrama, gives us a novel full of hope and wonder, tied to fully realized characters that as readers, we come to care about. I loved this book. It is indeed Habila at his best. Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers
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. Madeleine Thien, author of Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Unforgettable. Helon Habila writes of individual lives?pulled apart by our wars, our failed states and our deepest fears?with insight and searing compassion. Vu Tran, author of Dragonfish
A moving and eye-opening novel that captures our global political moment and plumbs the many layers of life in exile, of people who are forever bereft in their 'traveling'. Helon Habila writes with the eye of a journalist, the tools of an artist, and the heart of a sober and compassionate witness.
According to the UN Refugee Agency, over 40,000 refugees arrived in Europe in the first seven months of 2019, the vast majority from the war-torn nations of Afghanistan, Syria, Morocco and Iraq. Another 668 have died or gone missing on their journey. The total number of arrivals for 2018 was 141,472, with 2,277 dead or missing. While these numbers are alarmingly large, they are a fraction of the totals from 2015 when the crisis reached its peak and over one million refugees sought shelter in Europe, with 3,771 dead or missing (which is in itself a fraction of the total number of over 16 million people who have been displaced by post-9/11 conflicts). In addition to those from the Middle East, the Pew Research Center, reports nearly one ...
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