Hinterland

It is night, and two boys are crossing a river that is also a border. They have nothing but the clothes on their backs, their inheritance stitched into the lining of a belt, and the courage of an enormous gamble: that Europe will offer them a future they can no longer wait for in Afghanistan. Travelling by truck, by boat, by train, by bus and on foot, Aryan and his younger brother Kabir have embarked on an epic journey, clinging to an itinerary they repeat like a mantra so as not to lose their way: Kabul-Tehran-Istanbul-Athens-Rome-Paris-London. There are moments of wonder and adventure but also battles against cold, heat, hunger, violence and exhaustion. Whether they are harvesting half-frozen oranges in Greece, or hiding behind a false wall on a truck to Italy, or sleeping under the rafters of a sawmill in France, the brothers are exploited for their labour, hustled for their money and ignored by almost everyone, except the police. Hinterland is a novel about two children in the aftermath of trauma; underage, homeless and invisible in a foreign land. It shows what happens when the adult world rushes in, and what our universe looks like from the other side of the glass, to those displaced children who are out there, even now, on the road.

Author Biography

Caroline Brothers was born in Australia. She has a PhD in history from University College London and has worked as a foreign correspondent in Europe and Latin America. She currently lives in Paris where she writes for the International Herald Tribune and the New York Times. She has published a book, War and Photography, and also writes short stories. Hinterland is her first novel.