Helon Habila has written a stellar story of the lives of immigrants seeking asylum in various European and Northern American Countries. The reader is given snapshots of various people's from African and Middle Eastern nations searching for freedom from oppression, tyranny, gangs and wars. In the process, they are often forced to make quick, life changing decisions with little information. Hoping for the best, the results often fall far short of their dreams and expectations. This story explores

changing my rating bc i think about this book like every single day!!!! go read it !!!!!

Almost Perfect!I am in total awe of the simplicity of the storytelling In this powerful and emotional collection. The language is accessible and eminently readable. From the tone, yes it may have been written for a Western audience but from the accessibility of the language and the relatability of the stories, it is written for the “travelers” as well- anyone who has ever been a stranger or gone somewhere for a better life and better opportunity, safety or a new identity. Being Nigerian and know...

A beautifully written novel about the African diaspora in Europe, told through the eyes of a Nigerian graduate student at an American university who travels to Berlin with his wife and becomes swept up in the refugee crisis. His story intersects with the stories of the people he meets his travels and the people they have met along the way. There were chapters that reminded me of Chekhov stories where strangers meet in their travels and share their experiences and reflect on their lives. The stor...

This is a touching collection of stories that might remind you how lucky you are in the safety of your home. No wars are raging in your country, you don't fear extremists that might come to your village to rape and kill. You don't have to sell all your life to pay smugglers for a place on a dingy boat that might not make it to the coast. The alternatives are scarier so you still chose a slim chance, trying to remember whether you know how to swim. It takes immense bravery to go somewhere without...

Immerses you in the daily lives of a variety of different refugees seeking asylum in Europe. The chapters are interconnected stories, with a linked thread in the form of a Nigerian man in Berlin who is not a refugee, but is feeling unmoored in a way that resonates with the lives of the refugees he meets. The clean, clear, non-melodramatic writing creates the perfect tone to allow the reader to really live with these people, and realize just how few twists of fate it would take to make any of us

Fantastic, if you can get through the first story. It really dragged on for me but once I got past that, this book was excellent. A must read to get more perspective on the refugee crisis.

A hint of unreality pervades this book (sometimes to its benefit, but mostly to its detriment)

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 her husband) that she's detached from the sufferings of recently immigrated Africans, unless they are in some way useful subjects for her art projects. When the couple relocates to France for her art...

timely and beautifully written. stories of black immigrants in europe, the horror and the hope, the disappointment and the problems it poses. a graduate student of nigerian origin comes from virginia to berlin with his wife for one year, and then stays on. he meets people who came to europe from different countries in africa, for different reasons, and listens to and tells us their stories. the novel has a feel of story collection about it, there are different stories and pov’s, but in the end a...

“If I wait here long enough, presently something would be revealed to me, someone would step up to me, a familiar face or a total stranger, a child, a man, a woman, and they would say, Listen. And they would tell me a story, a secret, something so pithy, so profound, that it is worth the wait.”Travelers is about the stories and secrets that African refugees and asylum seekers carry, the colorful past that helps answer the question, “Where am I? Who am I? How did I get here?” It’s about how we re...

Sublimely written.Masterfully crafted six novellas, connected and entertwined stories of migration; people who left home out of choice and those forced to leave; fleeing domestic wars ravaging their countries hoping for a better life, a better reception. Travellers will chew and spit out your heart. Travellers forces you to check your privilege and your humanity.All the six stories will leave an indelible impression.Highly recommended.

My favourite read of 2020 so far.Each chapter could be its own complete story, but Travellers is a novel, not a collection. I read this book as a part of this year’s #FLNovel course/James Tait Black Prize nomination.

4.5I first started reading this around the time I’d finished Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go, Went, Gone. Perhaps I put it aside because the novels cover some of the same events, though I really don’t remember. When it popped up on my Kindle as a book I hadn’t finished, I was reading another novel of emigration*, so perhaps that was my reason for deciding to restart it, though once again it was the Erpenbeck I compared it to (subconsciously this time), and favorably.I am impressed with Habila’s prose, espe...

The concept of survivor's guilt has gone out of fashion, but I can't think of a better way to describe the main character's motivations in Travelers. The nameless Nigerian man who narrates in the first person and features in most of the stories is an outsider, albeit "an exile by choice" (like Helon Habila himself) who left his country to pursue graduate education. During a stint in Berlin with his black American wife, the narrator plunges, voluntarily, into the no man's land of migrant life in

Travelers by Helon Habila: 10/10An absolutely outstanding, beautiful book from beginning to end. Throughout the course of the novel, we get not only the story of a single character, nor just that of the rest of the characters, but rather the story of an entire group of people. Habila effortlessly weaves multiple characters, nations, and storylines to produce this hauntingly gorgeous portrait of travelers and refugees. There is not much else to say, this is a book that absolutely everyone should

| | 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 claim to Europe. A black person's relationship with Europe would always need qualification—he or she couldn't simply be native European, there had to be an origin explanation. Helon Habila's Travell...

Travelers concerns refugees and migrants moving in and out of Europe, Africa, north America, and the Middle East. Formally, it's a string of short stories linked by the misadventures of an unnamed narrator. We begin with he and his wife, Gina, settling into Berlin as she pursues an art fellowship, painting portraits of migrants and refugees titled... "Travelers." The couple's relationship falls apart and the narrator travels, collecting stories of other people moving across national boundaries.I...

A very moving and beautifully written book about refugees and their struggles. Several different stories, but all with the same theme. What people will put themselves through to find safety and security.

Well, I'm shattered. I didn't expect this much heartbreak, but here it is.