Synopses & Reviews
Mahi Binebine's courageous novel takes place in Morocco, where seven would-be immigrants, pulled by the dream of a better life, gather one night near the Straight of Gibraltar, the ten-mile-wide waterway that separates Europe and Africa, to wait for a signal from traffickers that it is time to cross. While they wait, their stories unfold: Kacem is an escapee from the civil war in Algeria; Nuara, with her newborn child, hopes to find her husband, who hasnt been in touch for months since moving to France; and Aziz, the young narrator, and his cousin Reda are severed, in different ways, from their families in southern Morocco. They all share a longing to escape and a readiness to risk everything, but the only person who can help them is Morad, a fast-talking ex-con.
Welcome to Paradise delves into a world that most readers know only from stories on the nightly news, delivering a compassionate glimpse into the difficulties facing asylum seekers and a striking portrait of human desperation.
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"A strong, unsparing novel..." Booklist
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"A masterful account of North Africans trying to sneak across the Straits of Gibraltar into Spain... A fine debut: richly atmospheric and evocative, at once a sharply narrated tale of suspense and a carefully constructed memoir of inner grief." Kirkus Reviews
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"[D]eterminedly humanistic and profoundly touching..." Shelf Awareness
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"From often bleak material, Mahi Binebine has written a moving novel that is full of life and light, aided by a fine translation from the French by Lulu Norman." The Independent
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"Binebine describes their plight in crisp elegant prose, which manages to convey compassion but avoids sentimentality." Camden Journal
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"Binebine writes with humanity...His is a rare voice, genuine, subtle and wry, even as it tells of private miseries and public suffering." Observer
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"At once sympathetic to a people's plight and angry with its self-delusions, this is a brave book to have written and a rich, unsettling one to read." Literary Review
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"The suspense is compelling, and the novel's lyricism assails a dehumanising anonymity. There is a Sisyphean epic unfolding in the endless effort to reach paradise and the repetitive cycle of failure and defeat." Guardian
About the Author
Mahi Binebine was born in Marrakech in 1959. He studied in Paris and taught mathematics, until he became recognized first as a painter, then as a novelist. Binebine lived in New York in the late 1990s, when his paintings began to be acquired by the Guggenheim Museum.