As Mahi Binebine's Welcome to Paradise begins, Aziz and his shivering cousin are at a café in Tangier. The cousin has soiled himself in a fit of nerves, and the outraged waiter has just thrown them both out. They join other would-be illegal immigrants hiding on the beach, ready to cross the Strait of Gibraltar. Tonight is the night.
They've been waiting for a month at the little Café France, entertained by Momo the trafficker, a crook with an unusual gift for friendship who has learned to take no chances after spending three years in a French prison. We meet the people who have paid him for passage: Aziz, the young scholar who has failed his exam; Reda, his cousin, whose brother has had both his hands amputated, whose mother threw herself down a well; Nuara, clutching a baby who will not stop bawling, searching for a husband who has not returned; Kacem Judi, an Algerian teacher who has survived the butchery of his people; Pafadnam and Yarce, who have come from Mali with their life savings; and Yussef from Marrakesh, whose family are all dead.
In a spare, straightforward style, Binebine creates a compelling, all-too-human cast of characters ready to risk everything to get across the Strait. By the time they reach the last hours and prepare to attempt the dangerous crossing, the reader has come to identify intensely with their hopes and loves and fears.
The book's final stretches are agonizingly suspenseful, with a painfully believable ending that stays true to Binebine's heartbreaking commitment to his characters and his determinedly humanistic, profoundly touching vision. --Nick DiMartino, Nick's Picks, University Book Store, Seattle