In 2015, more than one million migrants and refugees, most fleeing war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East, attempted to make the perilous journey into Europe. Around three thousand lost their lives as they crossed the Mediterranean and Aegean in rickety boats provided by unscrupulous traffickers, including over seven hundred men, women, and children in a single day in April. These stories have been heart-breaking front-page news, but the individuals involved often remain nameless and detailed accounts of their ordeals remain few.
In one of the first works of narrative nonfiction on the ongoing refugee crisis and the civil war in Syria,Cast Away describes the agonizing stories and the impossible decisions that migrants have to make as they head toward what they believe is a better life: a pregnant woman, four days overdue, chooses to board an obviously unsafe smuggler’s ship to Greece; a father, swimming from a sinking ship, has to decide whether to hold onto one child or let him go to save another; a Syrian man, charged with keeping his relatives safe, must choose whether to leave them behind in Syria or take them with him.
Veteran journalist Charlotte McDonald-Gibson weaves together the experiences of five refugees—three from Syria, one from Eritrea, and one from Nigeria—and their families and friends, offering a vivid, on-the-ground glimpse of the pressures and hopes that drive them. Recalling the work of Katherine Boo and Caroline Moorehead, Cast Away brings to life the human consequences of one of the most urgent humanitarian issues of our time.
