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Seeking Refuge 2060

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Seeking Refuge 2060

By: Femi Nylander
Narrated by: Femi Nylander
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About this listen

The year is 2060, and two boys in different parts of the world are facing very different problems. Elijah Walker has thrown himself into the VirtuWorld since the accident that changed his life, spending his days sitting in his wheelchair with a VR headset and gloves, immersed in hyperrealistic virtual reality games. One day he is approached by two mysterious men from the UK Home Office with an offer he can't refuse.

Hakeem Abubakar is a young boy in Northern Nigeria who begins to dream of a world beyond heat and desperation. He sets off north through the Sahara Desert with a close friend, but does not foresee the odyssey of trials and tribulations which awaits them.

Seeking refuge is a story of migration, movement, neuroscience, disability and human nature. The author, Femi Nylander, is an award-winning filmmaker, actor, poet, musician, and author. His work touches on themes of migration and language, the impact of science on politics, and the ever-shifting enigma of human nature.

©2024 Femi Nylander (P)2024 Femi Nylander Science Fiction & Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Celebrity Africa
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Having been deeply moved by both of Nylander's poetic TED Talks on YouTube and educated by his BBC/ BFI film on French colonial history a few years ago, African Apocalypse, when I heard about this book on the grapevine, I was excited and have been eagerly awaiting its release. I wasn't disappointed. The book touches on very important themes and moves between topics such as disability and the susceptibility of young people to be conditioned and formed into weapons by the world of virtual reality and video games to the realities faced by everyday migrants on the long and treacherous road to Europe. The alternating nature of the paragraphs (there are two main characters in different parts of the world who talk about their stories in alternating chapters), can confuse you when you first start the book. However, once you get into it, and the world's building part of the story has run its course, the action itself goes into full swing. I feel the book was well paced. The chapters were shorter than I'm used to, however, I understand why this was done. There are two stories to be told in the space of a book that is only the length of one and as a debut author, Nylander couldn't really afford to get away with a George R.R. Martin length book. The fact that the paragraphs are two to four thousand words generally doesn't take away from the story in any real way.

Nylander also has a background in theatre, and this comes through in his performance. Each of the characters has a distinctive voice. My personal favourite is Jill's. The Old Lady. They really come alive in the reading, and given that it's read by the author, you know that you're hearing them as they were written.

Seeking Refuge 2060 is one of those books that grows on you slowly. I found myself questioning whose story I empathise more with. Elijah is someone whose everyday struggles you can understand as a Westerner, although his disability was eye opening. I didn't know about things like wheelchair incontinence/ leg bags and different types of spinal cord lesions, for example, before reading the book. Hakeem is someone from a poorer country with an entirely different worldview and situation to that of the Western reader, and so his story can push you out of your comfort zone, which is a very good thing, I think. A difficult read at times, with quite an emotional ending. I will be recommending this book to friends and hope that it will change the perspectives of some of my acquaintances on the migrant crisis and solutions we should take towards it.

The beginnings of an epic odyssey

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