Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Insha Allah: How The Journey Back To My Roots Became An Adventurous Escape From the Sahara

by Sara Cheikh

The cosmopolitan daughter of
Saharawi  émigrés  travels to visit her family in the forgotten refugee
city-camps scattered in the Western Sahara desert.

At the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak, what was supposed to be a long-awaited homecoming becomes
a desperate adventure escaping border guards and surviving on candy bars, all
the while trying to avoid losing her cool with unwanted and unlikely traveling
companions. On her odyssey back home through
a changing world, she faces starvation, the possibility of arrest, and
kidnapping, as she attempts to cross the border into Algeria by any means
possible. Alternating between tense, poignant, and funny, this heartfelt
first-hand account explores life and lessons from the plight of the Saharawi
people. Sara's story questions the meaning of cultural heritage and the
universal desire to have a homeland.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Insha Allah is Sara’s first
book and is the first memoir published in English by a Saharawi woman writer. The
book includes historical and personal black & white images, color image
insert, and maps of the Saharawi territory and Sara’s journey. 

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 20, 2023

Reviews

[Jacqueline Nyathi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

https://shonareads.wordpress.com/2023...

I am full of appreciation for this book, the first I’ve read from a Saharawi writer—Sara Cheikh’s non-fiction account of her return to “the desert” and her home right at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. She left Western Sahara as a young child, migrating to Spain with her family, and although she has returned briefly in-between, she is now both a Westerner and yet still Saharawi, something she explores in this memoir.

With dry wit, she tells us how she wanted to get back to see her grandmother and immerse herself in her people’s ways again, but her visit coincided with the first Covid lockdowns. Her journey back from the desert to Paris is an epic story of endurance, dust, kind people, goats, complicated personal identification documents, time in a camp near the Algerian border, a lot of thinking on her feet, and much more. Cheikh has a great network of family and friends, and connects well with people; these things serve her well.

Underlying her tale is the heartbreak of her homeland. The Saharawi people have been engaged in a struggle against Morocco for autonomy for over forty years, and have been trapped in a small area of desert in the western Sahara, as well as camps that were built by Saharawi women in the mid- to late-1970s in neighbouring Algeria. Saharawi independence is supported by very few countries in the world, and those against it are powerful—Spain, the US and others have formed alliances with Morocco against the Saharawi people.

Although the story of her homeland is wrenching, Cheikh’s very personal tale gives us a picture of the real effects of geopolitical manoeuvring on ordinary people, and the central theme of a migrant’s connection to home is a story many will relate to. Cheikh also brings much humour, warmth and delight with her descriptions of the Saharawi way of life in the desert (and her lazy cousin), as well as with her included photographs.

Thank you very much to Feral House and to Edelweiss for access to this DRC.

[Orianna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro que habla de vainas y pibes en el desierto. Qué celebración del español migrante.

[Nicole Bergen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world is such a strange and messy place. This was an interesting memoir by a Saharawi woman of Western Sahara who now lives in a Spain and her experience of being stuck between the two worlds during the pandemic. Western Sahara’s struggle for independence is talked about so rarely that almost no one in the west seems to know about it so I was glad to learn more about it and about her family’s experience in the refugee camp in Algeria and the partially sovereign area between Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara and Algeria. And some of the people in the camp watch Billie Eilish and K-pop on YouTube. This is why I think I’ll never get tired of reading around the world.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice short detailing of the beginning of the COVID pandemic in a unique area of the world. I Think this book does well at highlighting migration/immigration issues and how crises can reveal the fault lines between who the world decides is worth protecting.

[Maria Cabral · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aprendi imenso sobre a ocupação e opressão do Sahara Ocidental por Marrocos e sobre a cultura saharawi. Preferia que a narrativa não fosse enquadrada no covid 19.

[Alison Fong · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little different than what I was expecting but still good. I learned a lot about Western Sahara and the Saharawi people, which was my goal in reading the book.