The Mediterranean Wall

Description

Dima fled war and torture in Syria. Semhar is running from conscription in Eritrea. Shoshana was driven from Nigeria by climate change and hunger. Now the three women wait on the Libyan shore to board a crowded migrant boat heading for Europe, and the safety they long for. Three modern-day odysseys. Three journeys through unimaginable pain and hardship in the hope of reaching safety. Three stories of struggle and bravery that reach a dramatic and deadly climax in the middle of the Mediterranean sea....

Louis-Philippe Dalembert is an award-winning Haitian poet and novelist, who writes in both French and Haitian Creole. His works have been translated into several languages. The Mediterranean Wall was longlisted for the Goncourt Prize and is the first of his novels to be translated into English. He now divides his home between Berlin, Paris and Port-au-Prince.

'Plunges us into the hell lived by the hundreds of passengers in the hold of a ship tossed on a furious sea. The story full of twists keeps the reader breathless... Thankfully amid all this misfortune, solidarity is always present, like a breath of oxygen' - Le Figaro 'Masterful... The force of this novel, and its evocative power, come from the author's willingness to turn this tragedy into literature, not the sort of novel that simply pours pity on victims, but one which makes you think, and which makes the characters feel so human, so close that you ask yourself this question: 'What if it was me who had to sell everything to board that boat of misery?'' - Tahar Ben Jelloun, Le Point 'Three women tossed on the waves of exile... An essential book' - Le Rendez-vous des Livres 'A dazzling display... The shadows we call 'migrants' nowadays prove their courage' - Marianne 'Literature has the capacity to reveal the human story behind statistics. It is Louis-Philippe Dalembert's genius to give personalities, families and loves to the passengers on trawler that sank in the Mediterranean... [The story] races along... A poignant and terrifyingly well researched book' - La Croix