The Odyssey of the Forgotten

How do Sembouyané and his childhood friend Idy, both from a small village in West Africa, a world-renowned writer and an orphaned young girl, find themselves without identity on the roads of migration and clandestinity? Through a terrible and intense odyssey between West Africa’s coast and the Mediterranean, Khalil Diallo tells the story of Sembouyane and his companions in misfortune, taking us into the flow of these thousands of migrants ready to cross the desert and the sea in hope of a better future. Nothing will be spared them, but despite disillusionments and sufferings, it is always possible to dream, to make a decision, and to fight for their inalienable and universal right to dignity. In a lyrical and poetic language, where magical realism is never far away, L’Odyssée des oubliés presents an uncompromising portrait of today’s Africa and yet offers us a novel of exile and hope.