I sometimes pick book at random and have no clue what made me read it. This particular book is one of such picks. It had an interesting title. The subscript to the title says “Stories of Muslim Migrants to the journey West”. This was enough an stimulant to make me read through this book.
The Iranian-born author, Behzad Yaghmaian, is an economist who is currently in political asylum in USA. He has tried to retrace the path that illegal immigrants from lands like Afghanistan,
Angola, Sudan or Iran take to reach the land of their dreams in OECD or EU countries. He goes to important cities on the route like Istanbul, Athens, Sofia, Paris and London.
The book depicts touching stories of immigrants like Shahrokh Khan, the afghan having the name similar to a Bollywood actor, who aspires to be an actor in Hollywood or Nur, the Sudanese pregnant lady, who on the way in Athens gets separated from her husband and her kid. It is not just the story of people like these, but the reality that is portrayed around them. This might be the slums in Istanbul or the ghettoes in Athens. Topics like homosexual relationships and the intolerance by Iranian government towards these gays can be some real heart wrenching first person accounts. Interspersed in such stories are the various difficulties that manmade and natural hazards put across.
This book would remain one of the best accounts to read about human trafficking and the dangers pertinent in it for those who are innocent aspirers of dreams.
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