An important, deeply felt look at lives in constant peril.
A powerful collection of stories from refugees stuck in asylum limbo in Greece.
The early 21st century has seen a rise in authoritarianism and anti-immigration sentiment, both of which have emerged alongside—or perhaps in response to—explosive levels of poverty, armed conflict, and climate change. In this book, journalism professor Benedict and Syrian writer Awwadawnan humanize the plight of the 84 million people “forcibly displaced” as a result of these issues by presenting the narratives of asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Cameroon. After difficult, often terrifying journeys, these men and women landed in Greece, the "major gateway to Europe” for people fleeing social, political, and/or economic oppression. Yet because of a 2016 agreement between the European Union and an immigrant-inundated Turkey, Greek refugee camps have become like prisons. Asmahan, a woman fleeing the Syrian civil war, observes that individuals, and sometimes entire families, are forced to live in shipping containers for months on end while awaiting word on their asylum status. Even when she arrived at a slightly more accommodating camp, Asmahan notes that “we were still prisoners, and we were still forced to feel that we were nothing but creatures made to eat, sleep and submit.” Woman and girls are especially vulnerable to the violence that plagues these camps; assaults and rapes are rarely reported due to fear of retaliation. Even when refugees are granted permits to travel around Greece, their lives are still filled with tremendous struggle. Hasan, another Syrian, recounts his own difficulties with poor housing, poverty, ill health, and hostility from Greeks, even those who ran the local hospital in the town where he lived. Gut-wrenching and necessary, this book sharply depicts an escalating humanitarian crisis that shows few signs of slowing down. In the epilogue, the authors provide updates on their subjects.
An important, deeply felt look at lives in constant peril.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-80444-001-8
Page Count: 322
Publisher: Footnote Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.
Bearing witness to oppression.
Award-winning journalist and MacArthur Fellow Coates probes the narratives that shape our perception of the world through his reports on three journeys: to Dakar, Senegal, the last stop for Black Africans “before the genocide and rebirth of the Middle Passage”; to Chapin, South Carolina, where controversy erupted over a writing teacher’s use of Between the World and Me in class; and to Israel and Palestine, where he spent 10 days in a “Holy Land of barbed wire, settlers, and outrageous guns.” By addressing the essays to students in his writing workshop at Howard University in 2022, Coates makes a literary choice similar to the letter to his son that informed Between the World and Me; as in that book, the choice creates a sense of intimacy between writer and reader. Interweaving autobiography and reportage, Coates examines race, his identity as a Black American, and his role as a public intellectual. In Dakar, he is haunted by ghosts of his ancestors and “the shade of Niggerology,” a pseudoscientific narrative put forth to justify enslavement by portraying Blacks as inferior. In South Carolina, the 22-acre State House grounds, dotted with Confederate statues, continue to impart a narrative of white supremacy. His trip to the Middle East inspires the longest and most impassioned essay: “I don’t think I ever, in my life, felt the glare of racism burn stranger and more intense than in Israel,” he writes. In his complex analysis, he sees the trauma of the Holocaust playing a role in Israel’s tactics in the Middle East: “The wars against the Palestinians and their Arab allies were a kind of theater in which ‘weak Jews’ who went ‘like lambs to slaughter’ were supplanted by Israelis who would ‘fight back.’” Roiled by what he witnessed, Coates feels speechless, unable to adequately convey Palestinians’ agony; their reality “demands new messengers, tasked as we all are, with nothing less than saving the world.”
A revelatory meditation on shattering journeys.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9780593230381
Page Count: 176
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.
Documenting perilous times.
In his most recent behind-the-scenes account of political power and how it is wielded, Woodward synthesizes several narrative strands, from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel to the 2024 presidential campaign. Woodward’s clear, gripping storytelling benefits from his legendary access to prominent figures and a structure of propulsive chapters. The run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is tense (if occasionally repetitive), as a cast of geopolitical insiders try to divine Vladimir Putin’s intent: “Doubt among allies, the public and among Ukrainians meant valuable time and space for Putin to maneuver.” Against this backdrop, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham implores Donald Trump to run again, notwithstanding the former president’s denial of his 2020 defeat. This provides unwelcome distraction for President Biden, portrayed as a thoughtful, compassionate lifetime politico who could not outrace time, as demonstrated in the June 2024 debate. Throughout, Trump’s prevarications and his supporters’ cynicism provide an unsettling counterpoint to warnings provided by everyone from former Joint Chief of Staff Mark Milley to Vice President Kamala Harris, who calls a second Trump term a likely “death knell for American democracy.” The author’s ambitious scope shows him at the top of his capabilities. He concludes with these unsettling words: “Based on my reporting, Trump’s language and conduct has at times presented risks to national security—both during his presidency and afterward.”
An engrossing and ominous chronicle, told by a master of the form.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668052273
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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