Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Insha Allah
SynopsisPlot
At the beginning of the Coronavirus outbreak, what was supposed to be a long-awaited homecoming becomes a desperate adventure escaping border guards and surviving on candy bars, all the while trying to avoid losing her cool with unwanted and unlikely traveling companions. On her odyssey back home through a changing world, she faces starvation, the possibility of arrest, and kidnapping, as she attempts to cross the border into Algeria by any means possible. Alternating between tense, poignant, and funny, this heartfelt first-hand account explores life and lessons from the plight of the Saharawi people. Sara's story questions the meaning of cultural heritage and the universal desire to have a homeland.
Story
About this book
Sara Cheikh's memoir opens at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when a long-planned return to her homeland turns into an unplanned ordeal. Stranded far from where she needs to be, she finds herself dodging border guards, rationing candy bars for meals, and sharing the road with travel companions she neither chose nor expected. Her goal is to cross into Algeria, and every route she tries brings fresh obstacles: the threat of arrest, the real possibility of going hungry, and encounters that test her patience and her nerve.
The book is noted as the first memoir published in English by a Saharawi woman writer. The Saharawi people have lived for decades in displacement, with many settled in refugee camps in western Algeria after conflict over the territory of Western Sahara. Cheikh's account moves between tense moments and lighter, sometimes comic episodes as she reflects on what cultural heritage means when your homeland remains politically unresolved. Questions about belonging, borders, and identity run through the narrative, grounded in the specific details of one person's attempt to get home during a period when much of the world had stopped moving.
