Hinterland

February 13, 2012
This debut novel from Brothers (War and Photography: A Cultural History), a former foreign correspondent for Reuters, is a compassionate and vigorous tale of orphaned Afghan brothers, Aryan, 14, and Kabir, 8, fleeing their native land to escape Taliban atrocities. Along their furtive trek to England—Aryan makes Kabir memorize their route: “KabulTehranIstanbulAthensRomeParisLondon!”—they work picking oranges in Greece, starve en route to Rome, and are finally stranded in Calais along with legions of other bedraggled refugees, including their old friend Hamid, all of whom scheme with a smuggler to get across the English Channel. “England is everybody’s dream,” says one refugee. The brothers encounter kind strangers, such as an American couple in France who pay their train fare, as well as cretins who exploit and even molest the naïve juveniles. Despite the string of hardships and setbacks, the brothers remain ebullient, even marveling how “hey must be the luckiest boys in the world” at one point. The skillfully handled backstory details their intimate family life in Afghanistan, and Iran, while the cinematic scope given to their journey underscores its immense undertaking.