Patrick Kingsley (How to Be Danish) is a journalist and the first migration correspondent assigned by the Guardian. In The New Odyssey, he investigates why and how the people of the refugee crisis migrate to Europe or die trying. He meets and travels with migrants, people smugglers and rescue boat crews. Alternate chapters tell the harrowing story of Syrian refugee Hashem al-Souki, who flees his destroyed home outside Damascus with his wife and three young sons, and hopes to settle in Sweden. Al-Souki ends the book with a two-page postscript.
Kingsley says the refugee crisis has been "caused largely by our response to the refugees, rather than by the refugees themselves." The mass migration to Europe is "only about 0.2 percent of the EU's total population... an influx that the world's richest continent can feasibly absorb, if--and only if--it's handled properly." He offers solid alternatives for consistent humane resettlement. The U.S. failure to take in more refugees has also contributed to the crisis. Many people who die while crossing the Mediterranean and the Sahara to Europe have lost all hope of being accepted to the U.S. They know and understand the risks, but have nothing to lose. As one migrant tells Kingsley, "Right now Syrians consider themselves dead. Maybe not physically, but psychologically and socially.... I don't think that even if they decided to bomb migrant boats it would change people's decision to go." --Sara Catterall