Reaching Mithymna: Among the Volunteers and Refugees on Lesvos

FINALIST FOR THE 2020 HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION

"Combining his poetic sensibilities and storytelling skills with a documentarian's eye, [Heighton] has created a wrenching narrative."--2020 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury

"Searing ... the kind of book you won't forget."--Kirkus Reviews

In the fall of 2015, Steven Heighton made an overnight decision to travel to the frontlines of the Syrian refugee crisis in Greece and enlist as a volunteer. He arrived on the isle of Lesvos with a duffel bag and a dubious grasp of Greek, his mother's native tongue, and worked on the landing beaches and in OXY--a jerrybuilt, ad hoc transit camp providing simple meals, dry clothes, and a brief rest to refugees after their crossing from Turkey. In a town deserted by the tourists that had been its lifeblood, Heighton--alongside the exhausted locals and under-equipped international aid workers--found himself thrown into emergency roles for which he was woefully unqualified.

From the brief reprieves of volunteer-refugee soccer matches to the riots of Camp Moria, Reaching Mithymna is a firsthand account of the crisis and an engaged exploration of the borders that divide us and the ties that bind.