num_pages: 590
description: The Fire in His Wake Spencer Wolffs exuberant debut novel tells the story of two men swept up in refugee crises of the twenty-first century: Simon a young employee at the UNHCR in Morocco and Ars a Congolese locksmith left for dead in the wake of ethnic violence. In search of a better future Ars embarks on an epic journey across northern Africa with Europe as his goal. He reaches Rabat Morocco where he joins a desperate community of exiles fighting for survival in a hostile land. While Ars risks everything to make it to Spain Simon gradually awakens to a subterranean world of violence that threatens his comfortable expat life and fledgling romance with a Moroccan singer. Part colorful portrait of life in the Maghreb part astonishing tale of hope and perseverance The Fire in his Wake carries the reader from the inner sanctums of the UN to the hazardous realities faced by the refugees in the streets and on their risky crossings to Europe. When a storm gathers at the UNHCR and the ghosts of the Congos violence surface in Rabat the two men find themselves on a collision course setting the stage for the novels unforgettable and genre-busting ending. Eye-opening suspenseful and full of unexpected humor Wolff brings his personal experiences as an aid worker to this unforgettable story of two remarkable individuals.Praise for Fire in His Wake A dazzling first novel about a Congolese refugeeThe Fire in His Wake addresses pressing themes of our timesmigration human rights and the refugee crisis. Splendidly ambitious both in narrative scope and formal innovation.Wolff has managed with enviable dexterity and sensitivity to tell the story of an African without reducing his humanity or pretending to comprehend or sublimate his suffering. Nyuol Lueth Tong editor-in-chief of the Bare Life Review a journal of immigrant and refugee literature The Fire in His Wake is a work of extraordinary empathetic and imaginative power. With a lot of heart and in vivid prose Spencer Wolff has done that brave and difficultand ever more rarething we most need our novelists to do: painstakingly imagine himself into lives and circumstances starkly different than his own. It is an astonishing debut. Thomas Chatterton Williams author of Self-Portrait in Black and White A devastating and infuriating story written with compassion style and grace. Beyond the harrowing depictions of torture and war this chilling tale of a heartbreaking life is at its core a struggle to come to terms with something much worse: the maddening hypocrisy at our borders the violence that Western powers inflict on the stories of refugees who arrive at their doors. Dina Nayeri author of The Ungrateful Refugee At this dark hour of shuttered borders and hearts can the novel still expose a human truth that finds no footing in statistics or news reports? With incandescent lyricism and wry fury Spencer Wolffs The Fire in His Wake builds to its remarkable answer: only by confronting the existential fullness of todays refugees migrants and so many abandoned aspirantsthe picaresque comedy alongside the tragedycan we see that it is those of us living in the shadow of fences and walls who are truly adrift. Greg Jackson author of Prodigals: Stories
language: English
title: The Fire in His Wake
publisher: McSweeney's