Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 204
•
Trim: 6½ x 9¼
978-1-5381-1845-0 • Hardback • February 2020 • $33.00 • (£25.00)
978-1-5381-1846-7 • eBook • February 2020 • $31.00 • (£25.00)
Danielle Vella is director of the International Reconciliation Program for the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). A journalist, she has also served as publication coordinator for JRS, editor and writer for the African Jesuit AIDS Network, a reporter for Vatican Radio, and a contributor to The Tablet, Times of Malta, and The Malta Independent. She is based in Malta, Italy, and travels internationally for JRS.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
PART 1: FLIGHT
Chapter 1: Where Do I Begin?
Chapter 2: Damned If You Do or If You Don’t
Expecting The Worst
Wherever You Go, We Will Find You
Chapter 3: Paying The Price For Principles
Send Christian Children Away
Truth Has a Price
A Matter of Faith
Chapter 4: I Am Going Where I Will Be Free
They Were Wrong Men
Please Don’t Hold The Gun
Escape
Chapter 5: I Was Already Dead
A Boy with a Difficult Life
I Felt I Had No Value
Chapter 6: Life Is So Cheap
Escaping ISIS
Paying a High Price for Freedom
Killed For Nothing
I Am You, You Are Me
PART 2: JOURNEY
Chapter 7: Leaving Syria
Unforgettable Details
The Good Druze
Chapter 8: Welcome to Libya
God Saved Me
Cruel Extortion
Good Samaritans
Chapter 9: Saving Lives Is Not a Crime
They Just Got Too Tired
Seeing the Reality
Chapter 10: Always Looking For a Better Place
Free At Last
Journey To Europe
Chapter 11: Fortress Europe
North African Spain
Another Deadly Option
Chapter 12: Looking For Life
I Want To See My Family Again
All I Want Is To Work and Have A Peaceful Life
Forced To Follow This Rhythm
Chapter 13: I Trust Myself
Looking For A Normal Life
Escape From Libya
From Algeria To Morocco
Melilla!
A Better Life Is Waiting Out There
Chapter 14: The Game
Beware of the Dogs
Hide and Seek
Chapter 15: Crisis of Compassion
A 50/50 Chance
Open-Door Policy
Chapter 16: A Life in Exile
Under the Bridge
Father and Son
Make It or Die
Try to Study
Happy in Rome
PART 3: DESTINATION?
Chapter 17: Safe For Now
Beautiful But So Expensive
Everyone Has a Story
Strained Hospitality
At Least We Are Safe Here
Chapter 18: The Dangers of Waiting
Wasted Time
How to Stop Worrying
Think Twice
Now It Is Time to Live
You Realise It’s Not a Fairy Tale
Chapter 19: I Have a Dream
My Dream Is Coming True
I Hope For a Better Life
Chapter 20: Rejection and Hospitality in Europe
An Ecstatic Reunion… And Then What?
We Are Lucky To Welcome Him
A Moralising Approach Based On Convenient Classification
Another Chance at Life
God Always Helps
Chapter 21: You Need To Listen To That Voice
The Power of a Single Gesture
We Can Do More Than They Think
Refugees Are Not What You Think Them
Chapter 22: A Question of Belonging
I Feel I Don’t Belong Here
This Is Me
Island of Isolation
Starting from Zero
Chapter 23: There Is Always Another Chance
A Whole New World
A Richly Deserved ‘F’Welcome to America
Chapter 24: Do Unto Others…
Acronyms
A journalist and director of the International Reconciliation Program for the Jesuit Refugee Services, Vella had unique access to a wide variety of people and uses her correspondent skills to create an engaging, thoughtful collection of intense, firsthand experiences most readers will never have to endure personally. This carefully reported compilation, best taken in small portions, should spark thoughtful discussions about the forces behind displacement and migration, the challenges refugees face, the associated social and political changes to our world, and a sense of a more compassionate and just world we hope to create.— Booklist
[Dying to Live] serves as a work of activism, making visible those who too often, through some combination of indifference and design, are kept invisible. . . . it would be an excellent addition to a high school library or the bookshelf of a religious institution. Vella’s riveted focus on the lives of actual human beings helps her to maintain moral clarity; she may not go deep into geopolitical context or policy analysis, but her overarching goal is to humanize the consequences, and at that she succeeds brilliantly.
— RELIGION
This is a book entirely in tune with the mission of the Jesuit Refugee Service to serve, to advocate for and to accompany de facto refugees worldwide. The voices in this book represent a truly global reality and their message is the same: human beings express a desire not merely to survive but to live lives worthy of their human capabilities and longings. These longings for peace, security, self-determination, community, family are long recognised as the basic goods of human life by the Catholic social tradition. What Vella manages to do in this book is to find words for what can seem wordless, avoiding the hackneyed or cliched. She has created a text with a single imperative: listen! — Anna Rowlands, St Hilda Associate Professor of Catholic Social Thought & Practice, Durham University, UK
Come along and journey with people whose stories will fascinate you, surprise you, uplift you, challenge you, inspire you and break open your heart. Too often refugees seem to be a mass of faceless people or an alarming statistic. But no refugee story is the same because all refugees are unique and beautiful children of God. This moving, sometimes harrowing, new book of stories invites you to see them as your brothers and sisters. An essential book for understanding one of the most pressing challenges of our time.— James Martin S.J., author of "Jesus: A Pilgrimage" and "My Life with the Saints"
This book has given a voice to the voiceless, a striking profile to those the modern world would rather dismiss as dematerialized. It mentions the unmentionables and shows that suffering and humiliation and rejection have more claims to be part of the human dimension than comfort and success. The debt by humans to humanity is becoming overwhelming.— Judge Giovanni Bonello, European Court of Human Rights, 1998 - 2010
The refugee crisis is, along with the climate emergency, the ethical challenge of our age. To address it adequately we must understand it. That can only be achieved by listening, with humility and respect, to the testimony of those who have risked everything to find safety and hope. This book allows us to take that necessary step. Some of the stories told here are shocking and hard to read. But the cumulative impact of this unique and vital book is profound. Here, at last, we have refugees speaking for themselves, with piercing clarity and dignity. A must-read for anyone who wants to get behind the headlines of the refugee crisis and understand the vulnerable, fragile and fugitive lives which impose on us an inescapable moral responsibility. — Julian Coman, Associate Editor of The Guardian
An individual’s life can change by the moment. Danielle Vella’s Dying to Live: Stories from Refugees on the Road to Freedom deconstructs what this means for people fleeing from their homelands. The stories, guided by the author’s commentary, awaken the audience to this distinct migrant population. The brave people sharing their stories strive to make sense of their uprooted lives, and the reader confronts the tough decisions they were compelled to make... All these narratives underscore the challenges Vella expresses with writing this powerful, thought-provoking book. Inspired by the Book of Matthew 7:12 and other heartfelt Biblical references, the last chapter ends with an appeal to one narrator’s particular belief that “if people out there know about such stories, they will act to ensure they never happen again” (179). Vella ends with a stirring appeal to readers to not let him, and others like him, down.
— Reading Religion