Helon Habila, Travelers

Summary

The Nigerian US-based writer Helon Habila has distinguished himself as one of Africa's important creative writers. He is the celebrated author of the following fiction works: Waiting for an Angel, Measuring Time, Oil on Water, and the non-fiction, Chibok Girls, to name a few. In recognition of his writing, he has been awarded several prizes, some of which include: the 2015 Windham-Campbell Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and the Caine Prize for African Writing.

Habila, who teaches at George Mason University, United States, is known for tackling pressing issues in his writing (Chibok Girls about the Boko Haram scourge, Oil on Water about destructive extraction and oil assemblage in the Niger Delta). In Travelers, the author is valiant as he narrates a gripping tale of the appalling migrant reception in Europe. This unsettling narrative reveals a desolate portrait of African refugees/migrants – travelers – in their search for safety and a new home in Europe. It is a tale of horror and trauma which implores urgent political redress. But the author offers no easy way out of this dilemma. Broken into six books, each book unveils the entanglement of the unnamed protagonist (and sometimes narrator) – an Americangreen- card-carrying Nigerian migrant – with undocumented African migrants in Europe. As the protagonist probes their world, the lines blur, and the reader is forced to confront the grim realities of the unmitigated refugee crisis in present day – an indictment of our failing political structures and world order. Its light-hearted cover design of six different houses may resonate with the sections of the book for some, but does little justice to its depth.

The events in Travelers unfold as the life of the unnamed narrator intertwines with migrants from diverse socio-political backgrounds and regions of Africa. A commendable wide canvas, this literary technique tasks the writer's narratology and sequence of presentation. Habila's adept handling of narrative and rhetorical strategies move the reader from the first person to the omniscient and the third person. Although this style individualizes each story, evokes affects and urgency, it may disorient some readers. The one flaw of this brilliant novel could be that the unnamed protagonist in some instances comes across as an artificial cohesion that ties the stories together.