The Illegal: A Novel

by Lawrence Hill

Overview

“A gripping political thriller readers may find hard to put down.”—Dallas Morning News

Keita Ali is an elite runner living in Zantoroland, a poor, fictional island that is erupting in political violence. When his father, a journalist, is murdered, Keita escapes to the wealthy nation of Freedom State—an imagined country much like our own. A stateless refugee without documentation, Keita must hide from the authorities even as he races marathons to support himself and ransom his sister who has been kidnapped. This tension-filled novel by the best-selling author of Someone Knows My Name is an astute exploration of dislocation, starting all over again, and the desperate need for home and community.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393353686
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/31/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	416
Sales rank:	667,219
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 5.50(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Lawrence Hill is the author of several novels including Someone Knows My Name, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and was nominated in the United States for the Huston Wright Legacy Award. In 2015 Hill was appointed to the Order of Canada “for his contributions as an author and activist who tells the stories of Canada’s black community and of women and girls in Africa.” A graduate of the Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, he lives in Ontario, Canada.

Editorial Reviews

"Hill eerily captures a tale that could be ripped from the headlines. The engrossing narrative focuses on the journey of Keita Ali . . . we feel his pain and walk in his shoes."

Essence - Patrik Henry Bass

"Lawrence Hill manages that rare feat—a political thriller that never loses its heart. Keita’s story will entrance you, enrage you, and finally make you want to reach right through the page and hug him. With skill and grace, Hill reminds us of our interconnectedness with displaced people around the world. This is a book about the liberating power of compassion. Don’t miss it."

Dolen Perkins-Valdez

"A sharp-edged, fresh and relevant take on immigration politics."

MPR News - Kerri Miller

"A twisting, intricately woven yarn that spins itself out at an incredible pace. . . . Hill takes on the snarled, pressing issues of our moment in time. . . . His larger moral questions linger, provocatively."

Globe and Mail - Carrie Snyder

"[A] remarkably prescient . . . gripping political thriller. . . . The reader will be left with lingering—and troubling—questions about how wealth and privilege is built by those are excluded from its fruits."

Dallas Morning News - Elizabeth Hoover

01/01/2017
In this story of a refugee from a fictionalized land, Canadian novelist Hill imagines the current global refugee crisis through the lens of a single man's flight to a xenophobic (and eerily familiar) Freedom State. (LJ 12/15)

Library Journal

10/12/2015
This taut political thriller from Hill (The Book of Negroes) focuses on undocumented immigrants, and how they struggle to survive in hostile nations. Keita Ali lives in the fictional island continent of Zantorland, located between Africa and Australia and best known for producing world-class marathon runners. His older sister, Charity, and well-respected journalist father, Yoyo, encourage Keita’s training as a gifted marathoner, but then Yoyo is arrested for his supposedly incendiary writings. Charity later escapes to study at Harvard, and Keita excels at racing. After the government thugs kill the dissident Yoyo, Keita flees to Clarkson, the capital of the nearby (and also fictional) island continent called Freedom State. He befriends Viola Hill, a paraplegic reporter covering the civil unrest in AfricTown, a chaotic ghetto where the glut of unwanted refugees like Keita stay. He continues running to win the prize money in marathon competitions, especially after Charity is lured back to Zantorland, kidnapped, and held for ransom. The descriptive passages of Keita’s runs offer ample excitement, while the colorful minor characters such as Lula DiStefano, “the unofficial queen of AfricTown,” and Ivernia Beech, Keita’s elderly but feisty landlady, add refreshing story elements. Hill’s intricate, propulsive plot includes corruption, murder, and mayhem, and readers will be rushing to its fulfilling resolution. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly