Edition |
First American edition. |
Description |
xv, 236 pages ; 22 cm |
Note(S) |
"Originally published in German in 2014 by Mandelbaum Verlag, Germany, as Mein Weg vom Kongo nach Europa." -- Amazon. |
Contents |
Foreword / by Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein -- Preface to the English Edition -- The Democratic Republic of the Congo -- My life before exile -- Escape from the DRC -- Rabat -- Founding ARCOM -- Raising our voices, fighting for our rights -- Europe -- Epilogue: The baobab : a refuge for migrant women -- Afterword: The current situation in the DRC. |
Summary |
"Persecuted for his political activism, Emmanuel Mbolela left the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2002. His search for a new home would take six years.In that time, Mbolela endured corrupt customs officials, duplicitous smugglers, Saharan ambushes, and untenable living conditions. Yet his account relates not only the storms of his long journey but also the periods of calm. Faced with privation, he finds comfort in a migrants’ hideout overseen by community leaders at once paternal and mercenary. When he finally reaches Morocco, he finds himself stranded for almost four years. And yet he perseveres in his search for the offices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees-which always seem to have closed indefinitely just before Mbolela’s arrival in a given city-because it is there that a migrant might receive an asylum seeker’s official certificates. It is an experience both private and collective. As Mbolela testifies, the horrors of migration fall hardest upon female migrants, but those same women also embody the fiercest resistance to the regime of violence that would deny them their humanity. While still countryless, Mbolela becomes an advocate for those around him, founding and heading up the Association of Congolese Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Morocco to fight for migrant rights. Since obtaining political asylum in the Netherlands in 2008, he has remained a committed activist." -- Amazon. |
Note |
Translated from the German. |
Subject |
Mbolela, Emmanuel, 1973-
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Subject(S) |
Political refugees -- Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Biography.
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Congo (Democratic Republic) -- Politics and government -- 1997-
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Autobiographies.
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Added Name(S) |
Collins, Charlotte, 1967- translator.
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|
Behr, Alexander, translator.
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Al Hussein, Zeid Ra'ad, writer of forward.
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Added Title |
Mein Weg vom Kongo nach Europa. English.
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ISBN |
9780374240929 (hardcover) |
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0374240922 (hardcover) |
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