This is the definitive story of life, death and survival on the refugee trail. Throughout 2015, Patrick Kingsley, the Guardian's migration correspondent, travelled to 17 countries, meeting refugees making journeys across desserts, seas and mountains to reach the holy grail of Europe. The New Odyssey reveals who these voyagers are, why they keep coming, and how they do it.
Kingsley sets a fast pace as he trails one person to the nextș drinking illicit moonshine with the kingpin smuggler Hajj; walking with Fattemah, the pregnant Syrian teacher who fears losing her baby as she freaks through the Balkans; and driving with Austria's last wondering shepherd, Hans Breuer, as he rescues desperate refugees from the Serbo-Hungarian border, and then sings them Yiddish folk songs.
In particular, Kingsley follows Hashem al-Souki, a civil servant trying to make it from Syria to Sweden via the treacherous Mediterranean Sea. Hashem is doing this journey so that his sons and their mum don't have to. His country destroyed, Hashem believes his hopes and dreams are over, but his children's are still worth risking death for.