Travelers

Award-winning author Helon Habila has been described as a courageous tale teller with an uncompromising vision...a major talent (Rawi Hage). His new novel Travelers is a life-changing encounter with those who have been uprooted by war or aspiration, fear or hope.

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.

Author: Helon Habila
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 06/18/2019
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.95lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.80w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9780393239591

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 01/01/2019 pg. 52
Publishers Weekly 04/29/2019
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2019
Booklist 05/15/2019 pg. 32
Library Journal 06/01/2019 pg. 104

About the Author
Habila, Helon: - Helon Habila is the author of Oil on Water, Measuring Time, Waiting for an Angel, and The Chibok Girls. He is associate professor of creative writing at George Mason University and lives in Virginia with his wife and three children.