The road to the salt sea, by Samuel Kolawole

 

I found this a tough book to read because nothing ever goes right for the protagonist, Able God, or anyone else in the book, for that matter. But it's an important book because it shows us not only the root of the migrant problem in Africa but also the horrible plight of many of those migrants who are sold a dream to go to Europe but who often end up facing starvation, extortion, and slavery. Able God works in a high class hotel but can only afford a small, one-room apartment. He's depressed about his situation and is in the habit of using street drugs and alcohol to stave off his depression. When someone named Ben Ten comes along to recruit people to migrate to Italy, Able is initially skeptical of Ben Ten's promises. But when a situation gets out of control at work and Able kills a customer in self defense, Able flees and signs up with Ben Ten to migrate to Italy. This book details the migration north through Niger, across the Sahara, and into Libya where the migrants are forced into labor camps to supposedly pay off their expenses. Along the way, fellow migrants are left behind in the desert or shot when they try to flee. Able himself is tortured when he refuses to give his captors his parents' phone number (used to extort payment from them), but he eventually relents and gives it up. When Able escapes and finally makes his way to the sea where he can cross in a rickety rubber dinghy, the crossing is nearly as treacherous as crossing the Sahara was. And when he's picked up by the Italian Coast Guard, he's taken to a refugee camp in Malta rather than to Italy. While there, he manages to earn some cash from a man playing speed chess on the beach, offering an optimistic glance at what might help sustain him as he (hopefully) assimilates into European culture. As I said, this is an important book for its portrayal of the plight of the migrant. But I kept thinking about how Able might have done better if he'd stayed away from drugs and alcohol and put his self-help books and reading to better use. This was a straightforward narrative and is very accessible, although I found a number of places where it could have used some better editing (there are what in film I would call continuity errors, for example). But I would recommend the book to anyone who wants to understand the migrant issue better.