Sahel

While half the world swept west,we trickled eastward, one by one,single-file, like fugitives.

Next stop:Abu Dhabi, where my father had a job,and money, for the first time in years .

.__________________________________________________Flitting from the mud-soaked floors of Venice to the glittering, towering constructions of the Abu Dhabi of his childhood and early adulthood, from present-day London to North America, André Naffis-Sahely\'s bracingly plain-spoken first collection gathers portraits of promised lands and those who go in search of them: