Alan Gratz · 2017 · exile

Alan Gratz's 2017 novel braids three refugee journeys across eras. Josef flees Nazi Berlin in 1939 aboard the doomed ship St. Louis, turned away from Cuba; Isabel sails a homemade raft from Havana toward Florida in 1994; and Mahmoud walks and rides from bombed Aleppo across Europe to Germany in 2015 - three children, three flights from home, echoing across the century.

1. 1
   Berlin

   1939: Josef and his family, released from a concentration camp, flee Nazi Germany aboard the ocean liner St. Louis, bound across the Atlantic for the promise of refuge in Cuba.

2. 2
   Havana

   Two stories meet the Cuban capital - the St. Louis turned away from its harbor in 1939, and Isabel setting out from it by raft in 1994, both seeking a safety the sea withholds.

3. 3
   Miami

   The Florida shore Isabel's family risks the Straits for in 1994, the American coast that means survival if only the small raft can reach it through storm and loss.

4. 4
   Aleppo

   2015: Mahmoud's Syrian city reduced to rubble by war, the starting point of his family's long flight north and west across a continent toward an uncertain welcome.

5. 5
   Germany

   The northern refuge all three journeys reach toward across eighty years - the country that turns Josef away and, generations later, opens its door to Mahmoud.