Welcome to Paradise

Welcome to Paradise opens a window into the hearts of a small group of African would-be emigrants, waiting on the beach in Morocco for a boat that will take them to a new life in Europe. As we shelter with them in the darkness, we hear of the cruelty, misfortune and grinding poverty which has compelled them here, to pit themselves against the dangers of the sea and the coastguards who patrol it. Tense, dramatic and blackly compassionate, Welcome to Paradise is a striking tale of human desperation and of the media-fuelled fantasies of Western life that hold a fatal allure.

'At once sympathetic to a people's plight and angry with its self-delusions, this is a brave book to have written and a rich, unsettling one to read.' The Literary Review

'From often bleak material, Mahi Binebine has written a moving novel that is full of life and light, aided by a fine translation from the French by Lulu Norman.' The Independent

'Binebine's terse, bleak, compassionate Welcome to Paradise is both topical and rare in tracing the poverty and cruelty emigrants are escaping.' Financial Times