Future Imperfect
It's a changed world and the River Rhone has flooded the town of Arles in France.
Helen and Isha leave to join their daughter and eleven-month-old granddaughter, Ayo, in England. In Calais, Isha, who has Ugandan-Asian ancestry, is told that new rules mean she will be immediately deported if she crosses the Channel. Faced with a terrible dilemma, Helen chooses to stay with her.
Homeless and stateless, they seek refuge in a friend’s Swiss mountain chalet, but to get there, they must avoid main roads and immigration checkpoints. They decide to walk along the Via Francigena, an ancient pilgrimage route from Canterbury to Rome, now also the preferred escape corridor for climate refugees fleeing north.
Jana resolves to follow them, but this is not a simple decision. The family communicates whenever and however they can while battling exhaustion, terror and the virulent xenophobia of people struggling to protect their increasingly scarce resources.
Their journey does not end in Switzerland …
- "Quite simply we think it’s an important book, a call to action. It is one of those rare works of fiction which are a warning and which use the power of story to act as a catalyst for change." - Bad Ink Press
Babette Gallard was born in Shropshire, England, but has worked and lived long-term in seven countries, including on a boat and in a jungle. She has written anything and everything, fiction, non-fiction, some published, some lucrative, some not, including accounts of her 1600km journeys along the St James Way and the Via Francigena on horseback. Now living in Johannesburg, she received her Masters degree in Creative writing from the University of Witwatersrand in 2022. With her husband, Paul, Babette manages their publishing company for the LightFoot Guides.
How it works
The book will be delivered in 10 instalments (or staves), one every day. The instalments are delivered to your Pigeonhole bookshelf on your IOS or Android app. You will receive an email letting you know when each stave is available.
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