The New York Times Book Review - Caroline Moorehead
…[a] remarkable book…Like Dadaab itself, the story has no conclusion. It is a portrait, beautifully and movingly painted. And it is more than that. At a time when newspapers are filled with daily images of refugees arriving in boats on Europe's shores, when politicians and governments grapple with solutions to migration and erect ever larger walls and fences, it is an important reminder that a vast majority of the world's refugees never get as far as a boat or a border of the developed world. They remain, like the inhabitants of Dadaab, in an indefinite limbo of penury and fear, unwanted and largely forgotten.
The New York Times - Jennifer Senior
…ambitious, morally urgent…Dadaab pops in three dimensions in City of Thorns. Readers will get a sharp sense of its folkways; its unwritten rules and adhocracies; its hardy but mostly parasitical economy, based on smuggled goods and the resale of United Nations rations. They'll start to grasp the limits of relief agencies and the United Nations, and what kinds of unsavory compromises are required to care for the world's neediest.
Publishers Weekly
★ 08/24/2015
Rawlence (Radio Congo), who worked in Africa for Human Rights Watch between 2006 and 2012, brings to horrifying life the conditions in the U.N.-administered refugee camp in Dadaab, a town in northern Kenya. By combining his own experiences with interviews with residents of Dadaab, he makes the human rights crisis—rarely covered in the media—vivid and immediate for readers. Rawlence delves into the stories of nine people, putting particular emphasis on Guled, who was born in Mogadishu in 1993 at the same time as the downing of two American Black Hawk helicopters. Rawlence describes how the Black Hawk wreckage became a play area for Guled, foreshadowing his life of deprivation and struggle, mostly within the confines of Dadaab. These and other telling details will resonate with readers long after they finish the book. Rawlence eloquently expresses his moral outrage at the conditions Guled and others endure, as when he notes that a “refugee camp has the structure of punishment without the crime,” running on “visibility and control—the same principles that guide a prison.” This is a compelling examination of the tragedy of a place where one “can only survive... by imagining a life elsewhere.” 5 b&w maps. Agent: Sophie Lambert, Conville & Walsh (U.K.). (Jan.)
From the Publisher
"[A] remarkable book...Like Dadaab itself, the story has no conclusion. It is a portrait, beautifully and movingly painted. And it is more than that. At a time when newspapers are filled with daily images of refugees arriving in boats on Europe’s shores, when politicians and governments grapple with solutions to migration and erect ever larger walls and fences, it is an important reminder that a vast majority of the world’s refugees never get as far as a boat or a border of the developed world.”—Caroline Moorehead, The New York Times Book Review
“The most absorbing book in recent memory about life in a refugee camp....Mr. Rawlence’s major feat is stripping away the anonymity....He transforms its denizens from faceless victims into three-dimensional human beings. Along the way, Dadaab emerges from the ever-present heat and dust to become much more than a refugee camp.”—Howard French, The Wall Street Journal
“Read this one.”—Associated Press
"[An] ambitious, morally urgent new book."—The New York Times
“Magisterial...[The book] moves like a thriller.”—Los Angeles Times
"In light of the contemporary crisis, City of Thorns serves as a cautionary tale. Rawlence's portrait of nine Dadaab residents offers a stark counterpoint to the rhetoric that too often speaks for refugees....This is a vital book at a critical moment in global history."—Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Gripping.”—The Economist
"City of Thorns is revelatory read. It is a lesson in politics, geography, economics, and humanity. Ben Rawlence's book will give readers the same insight into Dadaab that Katherine Boo gave readers into Mumbai with her book Beyond the Beautiful Forevers. This is an important book that will open your eyes and your heart.”—Everyday eBook
"[Rawlence] has done a remarkable job, bringing home the reality behind those statistics by telling us what life is really like inside one of those camps....Rawlence's description of the camp economy is fascinating and shocking....A masterful account. Next time someone refers derisively to a 'bunch of migrants,' get them to read this book."—The Sunday Times (London)
“That Rawlence has managed to capture so much of this unlikely city’s chaos and confusion in a narrative that is very nearly impossible to put down is an achievement in reportage that few have matched. Dadaab’s half a million residents could not have asked for a better champion than this researcher for Human Rights Watch, and while the facts and figures he shares are stunning, it is the nine individuals whose stories he focuses on who give the book its heart....Comparisons to Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers (2012) are spot-on."—Booklist (starred review)
“With remarkable intimacy, Rawlence reveals the humanity of these people in crisis who must struggle to survive in the overcrowded camp....A significant, timely, and gloomy tale that reveals the human costs of a growing world crisis.”—Kirkus Reviews
“By combining his own experiences with interviews with residents of Dadaab, [Rawlence] makes the human rights crisis-rarely covered in the media-vivid and immediate for readers....This is a compelling examination of the tragedy of a place where one 'can only survive...by imagining a life elsewhere.'”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"City of Thorns is a powerful and timely reminder of how unresolved conflicts, from Somalia to Syria, have contributed to the unprecedented global refugee crisis. Ben Rawlence's intimate, vivid portrait of the forgotten refugees in Dadaab is a much needed effort to close the humanity gap between the West and the rest. A must-read."—Kim Ghattas, author of The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power
“City of Thorns is a brilliant if haunting book that reveals just what it means to be numbered among the countless tens of thousands of refugees whose existence has been shattered by conflict, who survive with nothing, cast adrift from tradition and security, obliged to cobble together shadow lives from the detritus of memory and lost dreams. It is at once both an intimate story of redemption and hope, a prayer for the innocent, and a damning universal indictment of all those whose monstrous acts and vainglorious ambitions unleash the dogs of war.”—Wade Davis, author of Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest
“The most important book I've read in a long time. Not only does it make plain modern geopolitics, and what makes a refugee, it holds deeper truths about humanity and the system we have designed to preserve it when all seems lost. I worked in these camps at the height of this crisis. I needed this book. As we face a world with more people displaced from their homes than any ever before, City of Thorns is essential reading.”—Dr. James Maskalyk, author of Six Months in Sudan
“Where once writers made myths, now increasingly it’s the writer’s job to unmake the myths created by modern media. City of Thorns is a clear-eyed account of people living in limbo and a testament both to human frailty and human resilience....As timely as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring—this book should be required reading.”—Aminatta Forna, author of The Memory of Love
“At a time when West governments are obsessing over migrant flows, City of Thorns offers unique insights into what prompts people to abandon their ancestral homes in the first place and the dreams that send them questing for a better life. Researching this book can't have been easy. Ben Rawlence is to be congratulated not just for his accessible writing style, but for his modesty, pluck and determination.”—Michela Wrong, author of In the Footseps of Mr. Kurtz and Borderlines
“In this book Ben Rawlence has given us a complex tapestry of refugee life without romanticising it. It is like a Brueghel picture in words. An eloquent testimony by a writer with heart.”—Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, author of Refusing the Veil and The Settler's Cookbook
"Written with great integrity and insight, this is an urgent, important book that needs to be read. Through tireless and empathetic reportage Rawlence has worked for 5 years to give Dadaab a voice. Now we should listen."—Owen Sheers, author of I Saw a Man
“Compassionate and powerful, this book gets to the heart of the tragedy of Somalia, and the struggles that face those displaced by war and want in eastern Africa. To better understand the current crisis of migration in our modern world, start here.”—David Anderson, professor of African History
From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY
"Rawlence has written a book that just might change the world or, at the very least, awaken readers to one criminally forgotten corner of it." —Booklist Starred Review
author of Refusing the Veil and The Settler's Coo Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
To us they are just numbers, but refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants are names, lives, sons, daughters, lovers, people full of hope and grit. In this book Ben Rawlence has given us a complex tapestry of refugee life without romanticising it. It is like a Brueghel picture in words. An eloquent testimony by a writer with heart.
author of In the Footseps of Mr. Kurtz and Borderl Michela Wrong
At a time when West governments are obsessing over migrant flows, City of Thorns offers unique insights into what prompts people to abandon their ancestral homes in the first place and the dreams that send them questing for a better life. Researching this book can't have been easy. Ben Rawlence is to be congratulated not just for his accessible writing style, but for his modesty, pluck and determination.
Library Journal
★ 01/01/2016
Rawlence (Radio Congo) humanizes the refugee experience in East Africa by focusing on a cross-section of nine refugees from Dadaab, a camp in Kenya close to the border of Somalia that began in 1992 and has grown to the size of Atlanta, with nearly half a million residents. During the 2011 famine in that region, 260,000 people in Dadaab died. Rawlence focuses on this theoretically impermanent shelter for refugees that has become a permanent home for families, for child soldiers forced into the militant al-Shabaab Somalian group linked to al-Qaida, and for the NGOs and UN workers managing the relief work there. The situation in the camp and the surrounding countries is complex and somewhat unknown to American readers. Rawlence effectively penetrates this complexity by exploring Dadaab through the lives of nine of its residents, all of whom have hopes, are beginning families or are struggling to feed and care for them, are trying to get access to more education, and are resisting the financial stability offered by fundamentalist militias such as al-Shabaab. VERDICT Essential for humanists, those who are contemplating the struggles of refugees worldwide, and those interested in how humanitarian aid and other international efforts impact those in the midst of crisis. [See Prepub Alert, 7/20/15.]—Candice Kail, Columbia Univ. Libs., New York
Kirkus Reviews
2015-09-15
Former Human Rights Watch researcher Rawlence (Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa's Deadliest War, 2012) tells the distressing story of Kenya's vast Dadaab refugee camp, where nearly 500,000 people fleeing civil war in nearby Somalia live in a "teeming ramshackle metropolis" the size of Atlanta. Drawing on hundreds of interviews conducted during a series of extended visits to Dadaab since 2010, the author plunges readers into this hellish city of "mud, tents and thorns," where three generations of displaced persons have lived amid malnourishment and disease. With remarkable intimacy, Rawlence recounts the stories of nine individuals, including Guled, a former child soldier, and his wife, Maryam; Nisho, who finds work as a porter; and Muna, a beautiful, independent woman who was one of the first Somalis to arrive in the camp. As he weaves this complex, densely detailed narrative, Rawlence reveals the humanity of these people in crisis who must struggle to survive in the overcrowded camp—run by the Kenyan government with United Nations funding—where bribery, rape, robbery, kidnapping, and cultural clashes are commonplace. While Kenyan leaders demonize the refugees and want them out, local politicians, military, and police all benefit from exploiting the refugees in Dadaab and in Somalia. For their part, those living in the camp remain mired in "a culture centered on leaving"; they long to resettle in Canada, the United States—any country that will take them. "There was a crime here on an industrial scale," writes the author, who intersperses his story to cover outbursts of international concern, evinced by visiting celebrities and TV reporters and meetings of international and humanitarian-aid leaders striving to understand the "refugee crisis." The disjuncture between the harsh realities of life in the camps and the view from the boardrooms of world power centers is extraordinary and damning. A significant, timely, and gloomy tale that reveals the human costs of a growing world crisis.
