Yonas and his best friend Gebre have escaped from Eritrea, East Africa, and fled to England, a horrific journey. Once in England they are forced to work unpaid, preparing shellfish. They are told the work is to repay the trafficker. They live in appalling conditions in the factory where they work and survive on little food. Eventually Yonas escapes, Gebre does not. Yonas’ hopes of freedom soon evaporate despite being befriended by some remarkable people. He goes to an organisation which helps immigrants where he applies to remain in England. He is not allowed to earn money while waiting for his case. The whole bureaucratic system is quite startling. Enter the defending barrister Jude and her story, not quite as “life changing” as the publishers imply, [Louise you may wish to cut the last phrase]but a fascinating contrast which deeply affects her. It is a gripping story, initially told in statements which must reflect what is happening to thousands in Europe, good, kind people who are escaping horror but the authorities make it very hard for them. Read this, you certainly can’t fail to be moved. Sarah Broadhurst
Yonas Kelati: born in Eritrea, 2nd March 1975. Barely surviving a bloody civil war, Yonas Kelati has no option but to flee his home. After a terrible journey, he arrives on a bleak English coast on 10th September 2015.
Jude Bracknell: born in England, 2nd March 1975. Human rights lawyer Jude had already packed up to go home when Yonas' asylum application lands on her desk on 20th May 2016.
Opening the file, she finds a patchwork of contradictory witness statements: a lifetime exactly the same length as hers, reduced to a few scraps of paper.In one week's time, Jude will stand up in court and tell Yonas' story - and how she tells it will change his life forever. But can there ever be a single version of the truth?
Ellen Wiles was born in 1981 and grew up in Reading. Hoping to change the world , she did a Masters in law and human rights at UCL, and became a barrister at a London chambers, disappearing off periodically to work with Bushmen in Botswana and Burmese refugees in a camp in Thailand. She is the author of Saffron Shadows and Salvaged Scripts: Literary Life in Myanmar Under Censorship and in Transition (Columbia University Press, 2015) which includes new translations of novel extracts, stories and poems as well as extended interviews and descriptions of the place and the people. This is her first novel.
