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Cast Away: True Stories of Survival from Europe s Refugee Crisis
In 2015, more than one million migrants and refugees, most fleeing war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East, attempted to make the perilous journey into Europe. Around three thousand lost their lives as they crossed the Mediterranean and Aegean in rickety boats provided by unscrupulous traffickers, including over seven hundred men, women, and children in a single day in April 2015.
In one of the first works of narrative nonfiction on the ongoing refugee crisis and the civil war in Syria, Cast Away describes the agonizing stories and the impossible decisions that migrants have to make as they head toward what they believe is a better life: a pregnant Eritrean woman, four days overdue, chooses to board an obviously unsafe smuggler’s ship to Greece; a father, swimming from a sinking ship, has to decide whether to hold on to one child or let him go to save another.
Veteran journalist Charlotte McDonald-Gibson offers a vivid, on-the-ground glimpse of the pressures and hopes that drive individuals to risk their lives. Recalling the work of Katherine Boo and Caroline Moorehead, Cast Away brings to life the human consequences of one of the most urgent humanitarian issues of our time.
In one of the first works of narrative nonfiction on the ongoing refugee crisis and the civil war in Syria, Cast Away describes the agonizing stories and the impossible decisions that migrants have to make as they head toward what they believe is a better life: a pregnant Eritrean woman, four days overdue, chooses to board an obviously unsafe smuggler’s ship to Greece; a father, swimming from a sinking ship, has to decide whether to hold on to one child or let him go to save another.
Veteran journalist Charlotte McDonald-Gibson offers a vivid, on-the-ground glimpse of the pressures and hopes that drive individuals to risk their lives. Recalling the work of Katherine Boo and Caroline Moorehead, Cast Away brings to life the human consequences of one of the most urgent humanitarian issues of our time.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published September 16, 2016
17 people are currently reading
604 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
March 23, 2018
There are certain truths we take for granted. The steadfastness of the house we call a home and the items we acquire to make it a home. The certainty that the family who moves into that home will grow up together and their lives will unfold under that roof, every episodic drama, moments of celebration and the untimely periods of grief and sorrow.
Outside this home, there are other precepts we presume we know for certain. The quotidian neighbourly interactions that involve sharing juicy gossip or delicious food; the community that arises from this interaction that builds up and nurtures our families; the government that promises to support our communities, socially and economically as long as we fulfil our civic duties.
For centuries, civilisations have been built on this system. Civilisations, unfortunately, have also come to an end on account of fractures to this system.
However, as geographical isolation became a relic of the past we assumed that this would change. There was no way that the ever-shrinking world could knowingly stand by and watch as civilisations crumble. But we did and continue to do so. Homes and their belongings shattered, families split apart, neighbourhoods ruined and governments, well governments were and are responsible for all this catastrophic destruction.
Cast Away is a story of five individuals from three countries forced to flee their homes. Sina, Hanan, Majid, Mohammad and Nart left behind lives they once took for granted, to save their own lives and that of their families.
McDonald-Gibson is a journalist from the field, whose work focuses on refugee and immigrant policy. In Cast Away, she chronicles the journey of Sina, Hanan, Majid, Mohammad and Nart as they abandon their homes in Syria, Eritrea and Libya to try and reclaim their lives across the Mediterranean in what they perceive is the promised land - Europe. Their journey involves being smuggled across treacherous seas and braving unwelcomed lands where they are persecuted daily by misplaced prejudices, all the while as they watch world leaders build higher walls, create more restrictive policies and echo the same xenophobic rhetoric that further exacerbates their strife on the ground.
Each story is thread together by a common a theme that needs to be amplified constantly if we are ever to counter growing animosities.
The decision to leave was never a choice.
Europe was not envisioned as a home.
But it was the only place where they could recreate a semblance of the lives they lost.
Sina, Hanan, Majid, Mohammad and Nart do not ask for pity, they ask for the opportunity, an opportunity to finally have a stake in their own future.
Cast Away gives us a chance to know them better, to see them not just as statistics or stories lost among a sea of similar stories.
It gives us a chance to see them as ourselves and face the truth that their story could very well be our own.
Outside this home, there are other precepts we presume we know for certain. The quotidian neighbourly interactions that involve sharing juicy gossip or delicious food; the community that arises from this interaction that builds up and nurtures our families; the government that promises to support our communities, socially and economically as long as we fulfil our civic duties.
For centuries, civilisations have been built on this system. Civilisations, unfortunately, have also come to an end on account of fractures to this system.
However, as geographical isolation became a relic of the past we assumed that this would change. There was no way that the ever-shrinking world could knowingly stand by and watch as civilisations crumble. But we did and continue to do so. Homes and their belongings shattered, families split apart, neighbourhoods ruined and governments, well governments were and are responsible for all this catastrophic destruction.
Cast Away is a story of five individuals from three countries forced to flee their homes. Sina, Hanan, Majid, Mohammad and Nart left behind lives they once took for granted, to save their own lives and that of their families.
McDonald-Gibson is a journalist from the field, whose work focuses on refugee and immigrant policy. In Cast Away, she chronicles the journey of Sina, Hanan, Majid, Mohammad and Nart as they abandon their homes in Syria, Eritrea and Libya to try and reclaim their lives across the Mediterranean in what they perceive is the promised land - Europe. Their journey involves being smuggled across treacherous seas and braving unwelcomed lands where they are persecuted daily by misplaced prejudices, all the while as they watch world leaders build higher walls, create more restrictive policies and echo the same xenophobic rhetoric that further exacerbates their strife on the ground.
Each story is thread together by a common a theme that needs to be amplified constantly if we are ever to counter growing animosities.
The decision to leave was never a choice.
Europe was not envisioned as a home.
But it was the only place where they could recreate a semblance of the lives they lost.
Sina, Hanan, Majid, Mohammad and Nart do not ask for pity, they ask for the opportunity, an opportunity to finally have a stake in their own future.
Cast Away gives us a chance to know them better, to see them not just as statistics or stories lost among a sea of similar stories.
It gives us a chance to see them as ourselves and face the truth that their story could very well be our own.
June 17, 2021
Very sad to learn what actually happens when people flee hot spots around the world and the perilous journey and greedy untrustworthy people who make promises they can’t keep.....losing literally everything.
August 22, 2017
It’s incredible how one should have to ponder whether it would be safer for them to cross the Mediterranean or remain in a country devastated by war (or dictatorship). The increase in the refugees is a direct consequence of 2011, the year of the Arab Spring, hailed by the EU as a revolution against oppressive regimes. Yet “when it came to helping the victims of this noble pursuit of democracy, their [the European countries’] response did not match their rhetoric”. Europe doesn’t seem to remember its own dark days, it has not learned anything from history. And it’s indeed the EU’s fault if the smuggling industry has grown to its current capacity – through extortion and exploitation – because there was no legal avenue to apply for asylum. And these refugees have names, and they have stories to tell that deserve to be heard. And this is what this book proposes itself to do.
The book presents information about the refugee crisis (and the relative countries involved), through the frame of the stories of Majid, Nart, Mohammed, Sina, Hanan, Talal, Ismail, Riad, Rim and Bisan. It’s incredibly well written – sometimes informative, sometimes heart wrecking. Definitely a favourite, definitely recommended!
The book presents information about the refugee crisis (and the relative countries involved), through the frame of the stories of Majid, Nart, Mohammed, Sina, Hanan, Talal, Ismail, Riad, Rim and Bisan. It’s incredibly well written – sometimes informative, sometimes heart wrecking. Definitely a favourite, definitely recommended!
March 4, 2017
A very powerful book. I highly recommend it. An important read.
January 12, 2018
This book was an incredibly tough read. But I think maybe a necessary one. Today’s leaders have taken a hard stance against refugees. The populace at large, especially Southern Christians, has been overtaken by fear of refugees and a greed shown in their unwillingness to pay taxes to support refugees. I think as Christians we must fight against this stance. Read this book and be reminded that these are real people dying on the Mediterranean and freezing in jail cells and forced to march country to country. Read this book and be reminded that Jesus was a refugee. Read this book and be reminded of Matthew 25. Read this book and be reminded that we are ALL foreigners. Just read this book.
May 17, 2017
An eye-opening (literally), shocking, meticulously reported and very well told account of five refugee families converging on Europe in the past five years. She puts their incredibly precarious journeys and stories into the context of movements in their own countries and in Europe that add up to a global refugee crisis. Way more readable than I expected it to be and I learned a ton from it.
July 22, 2017
In my soft comfortable life in the Midwest of USA, I had no idea of the hardships, terror and aloneness of being a refugee. This collection of true stories takes place starting in 2011 with the European Refugee Crisis. African and Arabian civil wars, oppressive dictators and deportations force these people into refuge status. They main characters are: a formerly wealthy orphaned from Nigeria; a doubly educated Syrian; a man avoiding Libya military conscription; educated newlyweds deported from Ethiopia to homeland Eretrea where employment is limited and often not supportive; and the family who are of Palestinian descent and had a comfortable life in Syria...but no more. The wealthy and marginally employed both find themselves imprisoned, cheated by smugglers, abandoned, terrorized by unsafe boats, repeatedly turned away from paid for flights, forced into refugee camps and most horribly for the families separated with little communication available. What amazed me was how they all seemed to be able to find a source for forged documents, and money to pay for them. This is also the story of how the European Union struggled with the situation. Some of their ideas backfired, some worked.
Want to read
April 20, 2021From Follett: "In 2015, more than one million migrants and refugees, most fleeing war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East, attempted to make the perilous journey into Europe. Around three thousand lost their lives as they crossed the Mediterranean and Aegean in rickety boats provided by unscrupulous traffickers, including over seven hundred men, women, and children in a single day in April 2015. ... Cast Away describes the agonizing stories and the impossible decisions that migrants have to make as they head toward what they believe is a better life: a pregnant Eritrean woman, four days overdue, chooses to board an obviously unsafe smuggler's ship to Greece; a father, swimming from a sinking ship, has to decide whether to hold on to one child or let him go to save another. Veteran journalist Charlotte McDonald-Gibson offers a vivid, on-the-ground glimpse of the pressures and hopes that drive individuals to risk their lives"
July 22, 2017
This very timely and emotional topic is pretty thoroughly addressed in this book. I found the profiles of the refugees to be very moving and the factual information to be very disturbing. The book is definitely worth reading yet it's a somewhat slow and dry read. I found it difficult to keep track of the refugees' stories because they were broken up and told in bits and pieces rather than all in one go.
June 28, 2025
Powerful and as relevant as ever, though the tragedies and horrors of the ongoing refugee crisis no longer dominate headlines on a daily basis. Almost a decade since this book was published and nothing has changed for the better. Borders continue to harden, anti-immigrant rhetoric and vilification of refugees only increases, and all the vaunted ideals the EU is supposedly built on ring ever more hollow.
July 24, 2017
An eye-opening look at what refugees go through for a chance at a life free from war. I learned a lot from this book in terms of the various reasons refugees leave (or are forced out of) their homes, and how Europe is responding to (or ignoring) this crisis. Steeped in emotion, this book was often difficult to read due to graphic descriptions of death and suffering.
September 3, 2022
Everyone needs to read this book. This book really drove home the difficulties refugees face making it to Europe from war torn countries. Not only the journey but the atrocities they face when they reach Europe! It was an incredible read of the true stories of people from different walks of life that just needed kindness and understanding. I wish I could do more to help.
February 23, 2017
Wonderful economy of language- tells the recent macro history of the migrant crisis since 2011 interspersed with personal stories that are told with incredible detail and empathy- I feel as if I know the protagonists well. Heartbreaking.
October 5, 2017
Another very timely, horrific collection of stories of people just trying to survive and either losing their lives in the process, essentially locked up in rescue camps, or stuck in red-tape nightmares. Makes me understand the daily news in a very different way now.
August 5, 2017
This book provides names and details of the refugee crisis, so I found it compelling.
October 18, 2017
Everyone should read this.
December 26, 2018
Вам будет интересно.
September 2, 2019
This book took me quite a bit of time to read.....simply because its a difficult and pretty harrowing read. But these are the stories that need to be told.
May 5, 2020
This is one of those books that if you read it and don't feel like the refugee/asylum system is deeply broken, I don't get you.
June 24, 2020
Brilliant heart renching half documentary with live stories of refugees well with reading but has it made any difference
December 7, 2020
Hard to read
October 21, 2021
A heartbreaking series but highlights the courage and bravery of the refugees who never lost hope despite all the battles they faced in their respective journey's to safety!
May 3, 2022
Excellent book a must read. Really harrowing but important for people to read these stories and the reality of people seeking safety
April 18, 2023
A book so very needed in our society. Ripped my heart out, thankful to know these stories.
March 6, 2019
I think Maya Jasanoff's review on the back cover says it all " A closely reported, passionately argued, often deeply moving account of five refugees' journeys to Europe... it yanks away the anonymous screen of numbers and brings you face to face with real people-- people you can recognize in situations you cant. [Cast Away] mobilize [s] eyewitness testimony to promote empathy, and through empathy, better policy".
October 24, 2019
I'm sometimes a bit hesitant when a reporter turns into an author because I think they sometimes have a hard time changing the style of their writing to suit something longer than a few pages. But this book is different. Early on, I got the feeling that the author enjoyed for once having the opportunity to have a genuine opinion on the subject she was writing about. Nevertheless, she doesn't preach; she just states the facts and maybe adds an afterthought even though the facts speak for themselves already. For once, I also agree with the praises on the front cover. "Essential reading". True that, especially if you are lending your ear to the right-wing propaganda. How about reading something based on actual facts for once? "Gripping". This book has more action than an average detective novel so the pages keep on turning. "Deeply moving". At times I had to put the book away because I was so sad after reading what these people have had to endure, both in their home countries as well as in the Western world. One of the best books I've ever read!
February 3, 2017
Aylan Kurdi is the name of the small Syrian child who washed up on a beach in Turkey.
Cast Away is the book I will remember as the most important that I read in 2016.
For those who want to know more, just read the reviews. This book speaks to every single living human being.
Cast Away is the book I will remember as the most important that I read in 2016.
For those who want to know more, just read the reviews. This book speaks to every single living human being.
October 28, 2016
Personal, heart-wrenching, brave stories from Europe's refugee crisis. I don't know what the solutions are, but for humanity's sake, something must be done.
November 21, 2016
3 stars is not bad. Especially for non-fiction. Just clarifying.
December 27, 2016
Heartbreaking-
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews