A Seventh Man

Today, more than ever, people are crossing Europe in search of work. They are often protrayed as peasants, or unreliable day labour. But what does the Western world look to migrant laborers? Why are they forced to perform the most menial tasks? What compels people to leave their homes and accept this humiliating situation? In A Seventh Man, John Berger and Jean Mohr opens up the world of what it is to be a migrant worker—the material circumstances and the inner experience—and, in doing so, reveal how the migrant is not so much on the margins of modern life, but absolutely central to it.

First published in 1975, this finely wrought exploration remains as urgent as ever, presenting a mode of living that pervades the countries of the West and yet is excluded from much of its culture.