HARRAGA: When Leaving Becomes the Horizon — Malek Bennabi, Irregular Migration and Crisis of Future in Maghreb Africa

Why does an irregular journey begin to feel imaginable? What remains unseen after arrival, and why can returning be as difficult as leaving? Beginning on the Algerian coast, HARRAGA explores how the prospect of departure takes shape long before someone reaches a boat. Through documented accounts, field research and the distinct experiences of people in North and West Africa, the book follows the weight of waiting, the risks of the journey, the difficult work of arrival and the complicated possibility of returning. The lives in these pages resist easy categories. Families confront choices they cannot fully control. Women seek opportunities that cannot be reduced to employment alone. Children arrive with needs that extend beyond the crossing. A successful journey may not lead to security; a return may not bring closure. Written as an accessible work of narrative nonfiction, HARRAGA combines careful reporting with a restrained reflection on time and human possibility, drawing quietly on the ideas of Malek Bennabi. It asks a question that remains on either side of a border: what does it take to have a future one can genuinely choose?