Between Everything and Nothing

March 23, 2020
Novelist Meno (Marvel and a Wonder) delivers a suspenseful account of two Ghanaian refugees’ quest for political asylum. Flashbacks reveal 24-year-old Seidu Mohammed and 32-year-old Razak Iyal’s reasons for fleeing Ghana (Mohammed’s illicit bisexuality is discovered; Iyal’s life is threatened by politically connected relatives), their perilous travels through South and Central America to reach the Mexican border, and their detainment after trying to enter the U.S. legally. Facing deportation after their asylum pleas were denied, Mohammed and Iyal met in December 2016 in a Minneapolis bus station and walked for 10 hours across snow-covered fields to apply for asylum in Canada. Meno waxes poetic on patterns of human migration and contrasts America’s melting pot mythology with private prisons that “call into question the ethics of an industry that benefits from an inefficient immigration system.” The book’s most poignant sections reveal just how vulnerable migrants are to the whims of strangers, including the taxi driver who lied to Mohammed and Iyal about how far they were from the border, exposing them to life-threatening frostbite and hypothermia. Meno’s well-written story of survival and friendship puts individual faces on the plight of millions of refugees around the world. Readers will be equal parts outraged and inspired by this novelistic account.

April 15, 2020
Ambitious expos� of the troubled immigration system as seen through the lens of two African migrants' experiences. Meno, a professor of creative writing and prolific fiction writer, tracks the grueling journeys of his complexly rendered protagonists, Razak and Seidu, both from Ghana, one fleeing a murderous family dispute, the other a promising soccer player facing persecution after being outed as bisexual. The author portrays them convincingly as hapless pawns in a massive explosion of migration, countered in the Americas with greed and cruelty. Even for those with legitimate reasons to seek shelter, like his protagonists, "the asylum process in the U.S. has become its own inviolable system." The narrative is both sprawling and controlled, as Meno alternates between a terrifying account of their attempts to reach safety across the Canadian border during a blizzard and the longer-term arc of their improbable, brutal journeys as migrants. Both men traveled through Central America, facing constant danger and abuse. Applying for asylum at the American border, they discovered an unfortunate truth: that the post-9/11 realignment of homeland security "had far-reaching political and cultural consequences, immediately changing how refugees and asylum seekers were publicly viewed." Razak was detained for two years at a remote private prison, feeling "he had been taken out of the world." Seidu was also detained, eventually bonded to his brother's custody: "It was almost too much, this homecoming, this feeling of unabashed love and support" Yet, despite his credible fear, his request for asylum was denied without explanation, prompting his flight to Canada. Similarly, Razak found a life in New York but fled north after being scheduled for deportation. The narrative is dispiriting, as Meno documents the Kafkaesque, for-profit reality of today's immigration morass, but Meno writes deftly, with a fine sense of detail and place, bringing an all-too-common story to life. A well-paced and engaging account, highly relevant to current political debates.

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April 17, 2020

Fiction writer Meno (Star Witness; Office Girl) offers a nonfiction account of the harrowing and dangerous journeys of two Ghanaian refugees: Seidu Mohammed and Razak Iyal. He follows his subjects from their homeland, through South and Central America, across Mexico, to the United States, and eventually to the Canadian border. Originally from the same neighborhood in Accra, the men left Ghana for distinct reasons in the mid-2010s and did not know each other until a chance meeting in Minneapolis after enduring the labyrinthian American refugee process. Razak fled after a violent dispute over inheritance; Seidu fled because bisexuality was both severely stigmatized and illegal in Ghana. The similarities of their desperate journeys become obvious, providing stark examples of the experiences of refugees. These devout Muslims relied on faith, hope, and the help and friendship of people along the way to survive intense physical, economic, criminal, and mental challenges and abuse during their travels. Meno particularly condemns their treatment during detention in the United States. VERDICT Based heavily on the refugees' own accounts and supplemented by the author's research, this work will be valued by general readers interested in the stories of recent refugees.--Charles K. Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato

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Starred review from June 1, 2020
When Ghanaian refugees Seidu Mohammed and Razak Iyal meet by chance at a bus stop on a freezing night in Minneapolis, in December 2016, each man had already been on a long and torturous journey to reach the United States. Razak fled Ghana for Brazil after his half-siblings brutally attacked him in an effort to rob him of his part of his inheritance from their father. Seidu, 11 years Razak's junior, traveled to Brazil for soccer tryouts, but when his coach caught him in bed with another man, he fled, fearing retribution from the anti-LGBT Ghanaian government. Both men set off across South America, heading for the U.S., and facing perils ranging from armed robbers to swindlers, starvation, dehydration, and bureaucratic officials seeking bribes as they made their way through Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. When the men finally arrived in the U.S. to apply for asylum, they were incarcerated and thrown into a system so hostile, and so brutal, each of them was forced to look north to Canada for sanctuary, despite having relatives in the U.S. In his first nonfiction book, acclaimed fiction writer Meno (Marvel and a Wonder, 2015) presents a powerful and eye-opening recounting of each asylum-seeker's harrowing odyssey, essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the current immigration crisis.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)