Refugee : a memoir / Emmanuel Mbolela ; translated by Charlotte Collins from the German translation by Alexander Behr ; revised and updated with new chapters by the author.
"Originally published in German in 2014 by Mandelbaum Verlag, Germany, as Mein Weg vom Kongo nach Europa."
Summary:
Persecuted for his political activism, Emmanuel Mbolela left the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2002. His search for a new home would take six years. In that time, Mbolela endured corrupt customs officials, duplicitous smugglers, Saharan ambushes, and untenable living conditions. Yet his account relates not only the storms of his long journey but also the periods of calm. Faced with privation, he finds comfort in a migrants hideout overseen by community leaders at once paternal and mercenary. When he finally reaches Morocco, he finds himself stranded for almost four years. And yet he perseveres in his search for the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugeeswhich always seem to have closed indefinitely just before Mbolelas arrival in a given citybecause it is there that a migrant might receive an asylum seekers official certificates.
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