Travelers, Helon Habila
Travelers, Helon Habila
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
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Travelers
A Novel

Author: Helon Habila

Narrator: Mirron Willis

Unabridged: 10 hr 1 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/05/2019


Synopsis

A startlingly imaginative exploration of the African diaspora in Europe, by one of our most acclaimed international writers.

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.

About Helon Habila

Helon Habila is the author of the novels Waiting for an Angel, Measuring Time, Oil on Water, and Travelers, as well as a nonfiction book, The Chibok Girls. His writing has won numerous awards, including the Caine Prize, the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, and the Windham-Campbell Prize. He is professor of creative writing at George Mason University and lives in Virginia with his wife and three children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Lark on June 09, 2020

One of the richest and most intellectually-driven stories of recent immigration I've read. The male protagonist is Nigerian, married to an American artist who is gently coded in the novel as African American but who has reached a level of privilege, when compared with others in this story (including......more

Goodreads review by luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) on August 28, 2021

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | | “Are you traveling in Europe?” he asked. I caught the odd phrasing. Of course I was traveling in Europe, but I understood he meant something else; he wanted to know the nature of my relationship to Europe, if I was passing through or if I had a more permanent and legal......more

Goodreads review by Paul on August 24, 2022

The stories of refugees related in Travelers are intense, horrific, and moving and made me realize (I had before, but these tales fortified that realization) how blessed I am to live in a country that, despite its faults and despite the efforts of certain politicians and others, isn't ruled by a dic......more