Welcome to Litsy!

A Nigerian man + his American artist wife are staying in Berlin for her exhibition. Over the course of several encounters, he meets refugees who tell him their story of having to escape their homes. These are heartbreaking tales that humanise the refugee experience, parents and children who have lost their partners/siblings, routine brutality and prejudice, terror of escape, and loss of home. I found this book compelling and very moving ⬇️

This is a story of immigrants, most of whom end up in Berlin. At times the plot felt disjointed, but I imagine this may have been intentional as a reflection of the uncertainty so many immigrants feel when their lives are torn apart. They are forced to leave home and never feel welcome anywhere. The story does comes together in the end and it certainly gave me a better understanding of the strife displaced people are experiencing in today's world.

The author of tagged book is from Nigeria & has written several books.
The main character in the book is never given a name, which bothers me. Maybe because he is seeking a place to settle and is the person who hears all the stories presented. Book tells several refugee & immigrant stories that all connect. Refugee camps, racism, hate toward immigrants, finding a place you belong are all addressed. Good book, not as depressing as it sounds.

Griffin has started hanging out at my feet when I‘m reading or eating at my coffee table. He gets my rug very hairy, but he‘s cute. Think he likes the a/c vent that blows in this spot & the attention. Still reading the tagged book but getting ready to see the Downton Abbey movie with my sister. #catsoflitsy

Starting this for library book club next week. I think I‘ll like it—it‘s about immigrants & culture. Not really sure from the synopsis but sounds like an opportunity to learn something.

This book puts all of the pain front and centre: people losing each other, dealing with racism, poverty, endless waiting. Linking the stories is a Nigerian expat in Berlin, with a visa. He encounters his first refugees as a chance meeting, and then is drawn into individual stories. The book hammers home that this is not a crisis "over there" but is woven into everyday life.

I spend the days reading books sent to me by kind charities. Today I am reading The Lonely Londoners. It is about immigrants from the West Indies. Their English is sometimes hard to understand, but I empathize with their situation. “Are the streets of London paved with gold?”a reporter asks one of them. Very funny. I guess most of them didn‘t come for gold, they came for a better life...

Have you ever been on a refugee boat? Pray you never do. Pray your country never breaks up into civil strife and war, that you are never chased out of your home. The boat was really nothing but a death trap, an old, rickety fishing trawler that should have been retired a long time ago.

He was not a refugee, he said. His documents went missing and he ended up on the train by accident. I didn‘t believe him of course. You get such stories every day.

...the truth is that he had long ceased to be a poet, and most of the resistance was imaginary. But the people there, they loved it. They didn‘t care. They didn‘t even know where Zambia was on the map of Africa. As far as they were concerned, all of Africa was one huge Gulag archipelago...

In our first couple of months in Berlin, Gina and I had walked these back streets that led away from Kurfürstendam and on and on and narrower and narrower to the front windows of artisans‘ workshops and soup kitchens and Blumen stores and family homes with children and parents seated at the table eating dinner.