by Monique Ilboudo, translated by Yarri Kamara

Shortlisted for the 2023 ALTA National Translation Award

Winner of a PEN Heim Award

Jeanphi, a young man from the fictional West African city Ouabany, has one obsession that will determine the fate of his life – migration. He scrapes together money to take the illegal route across the Sahara, making it as far as Morocco before being repatriated. Increasingly desperate, Jeanphi meets an elegant French widower who for his part is despairing at the insurmountable bureaucratic hurdles for his charitable endeavour in Jeanphi’s country. A window opens to opportunity – but it will also bring tragedy.

Burkinabé author Monique Ilboudo’s novel offers a compelling and complex portrait of migration, one of the defining global concerns of the twenty-first century, and a sharp critique of both the NGO-isation of African countries and the currents of shame that divide communities and families. Yarri Kamara has rendered Ilboudo’s text in an idiom that conveys the sharp humour, lucid descriptions and urgency of the original.

Cover art by Soraya Gilanni Viljoen, author and translator illustrations by Haricha Abdaal.

This book publishes on 27 October 2022. Pre-orders will be delivered on or after publication date.