HELON HABILA

In the small Nigerian village of Keti live Mamo and LaMamo, twin sons of a domineering father. When one day the boys try and escape the village, only LaMamo succeeds - and in time becomes a soldier well-versed in the ways of life and death. Mamo, too sickly to leave, remains in Keti finding solace in the arms of Zara while watching impotently as his detested father grows powerful and corrupt. Unable to wield a weapon, Mamo instead reaches for a pen and soon begins to write the true history of Keti and its people - all the time awaiting the return of his beloved brother, LaMamo...

Once I started reading Travellers, I couldnt stop. With power and control, it plunges the reader into a maze of lives that crisscross between Africa and Europe. Refugees and not only refugees hungering for the north, pushing their way through the barriers of waves, human failings and unrealistic dreams.The novel has all the weight of art with the sting of breaking news. I loved it. It is Habila at his best Leila AboulelaPoignant and beautifully sculpted, a novel about exile, identity and the many kinds of travellers moving through our modern world - from the Caine Prize-winning author of Oil on Water and Waiting for an AngelModern Europe is a melting pot of migrating souls: among them a Nigerian American couple on a prestigious arts fellowship, a transgender film student seeking the freedom of authenticity, a Libyan doctor who lost his wife and child in the waters of the Mediterranean, and a Somalian shopkeeper trying to save his young daughter from forced marriage. And, though the divide between the self-chosen exiles and those who are forced to leave home may feel solid, in reality such boundaries are endlessly shifting and frighteningly soluble.Moving from a Berlin nightclub to a Sicilian refugee c