Refugee: A Memoir

by Emmanuel Mbolela, Charlotte Collins (Translator)

Overview

Persecuted for his political activism, Emmanuel Mbolela left the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2002. His search for a new home would take six years.

In that time, Mbolela endured corrupt customs officials, duplicitous smugglers, Saharan ambushes, and untenable living conditions. Yet his account relates not only the storms of his long journey but also the periods of calm. Faced with privation, he finds comfort in a migrants' hideout overseen by community leaders at once paternal and mercenary. When he finally reaches Morocco, he finds himself stranded for almost four years. And yet he perseveres in his search for the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees--which always seem to have closed indefinitely just before Mbolela's arrival in a given city--because it is there that a migrant might receive an asylum seeker's official certificates.

It is an experience both private and collective. As Mbolela testifies, the horrors of migration fall hardest upon female migrants, but those same women also embody the fiercest resistance to the regime of violence that would deny them their humanity. While still countryless, Mbolela becomes an advocate for those around him, founding and heading up the Association of Congolese Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Morocco to fight for migrant rights. Since obtaining political asylum in the Netherlands in 2008, he has remained a committed activist. In Refugee, Mbolela provides a direct, uncompromising, clear-eyed--and overlooked--perspective on a global crisis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250829504
Publisher:	Picador
Publication date:	05/03/2022
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 7.95(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Emmanuel Mbolela is an author, an activist, and a refugee. He was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and studied economics in Mbuji-Mayi. In 2002, he was arrested because of his political engagement. After his release, he was forced to emigrate and embarked upon a six-year odyssey through West Africa, the Sahara, and Morocco. In 2008, he was granted asylum in the Netherlands. He originally published Refugee in German in 2014.

Charlotte Collins translates literary fiction and plays from the German. She was awarded the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize in 2017 for A Whole Life, by the Austrian author Robert Seethaler, which was also short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize. Her other translations include Seethaler's The Tobacconist, Homeland, by Walter Kempowski, The End of Loneliness, by Benedict Wells, and Nino Haratischvili's The Eighth Life (cotranslated with Ruth Martin).

Table of Contents

Foreword Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein vii

Preface to the English Edition xi

Introduction 3

1 The Democratic Republic Of The Congo 7

2 My Life Before Exile 27

3 Escape from the DRC 49

4 Rabat 97

5 Founding Arcom 117

6 Raising Our Voices, Fighting for Our Rights 123

7 Europe 189

Epilogue: The Baobab: A Refuge for Migrant Women 219

Afterword: The Current Situation in the DRC 223

Contact Information 229

List of Abbreviations 231

Acknowledgments 235

Editorial Reviews

"We seldom read their complete stories in their own words, except in brief answers to journalists' questions on rescue ships or in refugee camps. Thus the value of Congolese activist Emmanuel Mbolela's comprehensive 2014 account, Refugee . . . The pain, passion, and frustration of Mbolela's journey, and the plight of the millions like him, are manifest." --David Mehegan, Arts Fuse

"[Refugee] connects the dots between neocolonial capitalism, African kleptocracy and wars, and the inhumane treatment of refugees at nearly every step of their arduous journeys . . . Mbolela's matter-of-fact testimony follows the tradition of Rigoberta Menchú, and, rather than offering artistically rendered scenes to tug heartstrings, he depicts the full brunt of the repetitiveness of atrocity . . . His humility fuels this powerful account, and anyone concerned with the plight of refugees owes it to themselves to pick this up." --Publishers Weekly

"Only Emmanuel Mbolela could have written this spectacular debut memoir, which conveys everything the world needs to know about the migration crises in Africa and Europe. Refugee tackles the urgent issues of immigration, human rights, and today's fractured border system, which has become the site of inhumane treatment and horrific crimes against migrants who are fearlessly seeking better lives for themselves and their families. It's a must-read for anyone interested in their stories." --Abdi nor Iftin, author of Call Me American

"Honest, infuriating, and raw, stories like Emmanuel Mbolela's should be compulsory reading. Here is the making of an activist, and a powerful chronicle of the tragedies and systematic deprivations that have become sadly routine for refugees. Recounted so plainly, with so little adornment or self pity, you'll shiver in his place." --Dina Nayeri, author of The Ungrateful Refugee

"What makes Emmanuel Mbolela's book so impressive is that it is not only a courageous and detailed denunciation, it is also a book of ineradicable inextinguishable hope. A book of resistance, of the rebellion of conscience. It is an important weapon in the fight against this racism, which is exhibited by so many Europeans and their state authorities, and exerts criminal, sometimes deadly influence on their policy of rejecting refugees. Mbolela deserves our admiration, and our unqualified, patient, absolute solidarity." --Jean Ziegler, Advisory Committee to the UN Human Rights Council

From the Publisher

02/15/2021

This sobering account of Mbolela’s migration from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Morocco and eventually to the Netherlands connects the dots between neocolonial capitalism, African kleptocracy and wars, and the inhumane treatment of refugees at nearly every step of their arduous journeys. The son of a successful cattle breeder, Mbolela began his activism while at university in Mbuji-Mayi, in hopes of launching a political career. But when he ran afoul of the ruling powers, he found himself in exile. Traveling from Cameroon to Morocco, he was extorted, forced to sleep out in the open in a migrant settlement, and gaslit by organizations meant to protect refugees. He witnessed even worse atrocities befall the women in his company, and later leveraged his relative privilege to help others, for example using his legal status in the Netherlands to campaign for the rights of undocumented immigrants. Mbolela’s matter-of-fact testimony follows the tradition of Rigoberta Menchú, and, rather than offering artistically rendered scenes to tug heartstrings, he depicts the full brunt of the repetitiveness of atrocity. But, as he writes, “it’s also important to bear in mind how much energy it takes for people to keep on encouraging and sustaining one another, over and over again.” His humility fuels this powerful account, and anyone concerned with the plight of refugees owes it to themselves to pick this up. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

02/01/2021

When Emmanuel Mbolela fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2002 to escape government persecution, he expected to return. Instead, he was forced to make a six-year odyssey through Africa to Morocco. Along the way, he endured dangerous living and traveling conditions. In this memoir, he describes in detail the terror he felt during four years of inactivity in Rabat, Morocco, where he lived in constant danger of being arrested. After several frustrating years in Rabat, he formed the Association of Congolese Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Morocco (ARCOM) and used the power of the group to attract the attention of local NGOs and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in order to obtain rights and protections for refugees stranded there. Mbolela was finally granted passage to the Netherlands in April 2008, where he continues to work to improve conditions for refugees and migrants. He concludes this English edition with a report on conditions in the DRC, where he finds a glimmer of hope for the future. VERDICT With this heartfelt account, Mbolela succeeds in humanizing often-forgotten people trying to live a more fruitful and safe existence. A welcome memoir.—Jill Ortner, SUNY Buffalo Libs.

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