The Glass Wall
After a perilous quest through an unforgiving desert, a 19-year-old refugee arrives at a colossal glass wall guarded by an old man. In order to be granted entry to the city, he is told he must recount the story of who he is, where he has come from, and why he should be granted asylum. Having barely survived his journey to the wall, the young man doesn’t welcome having to relive the pain of his past. But then, desperate for another chance, he starts recounting tales from his childhood, encompassing the history of his family and his country, and the prospect of a new life seems closer than ever. But will his story be convincing enough to guarantee his safety?
A story of struggle and persecution but abundant in hope, The Glass Wall is a clear-eyed, emotionally honest account of displaced people and the very human desire for survival at all costs.
Goran Baba Ali
Goran Baba Ali has written and published various literary and journalistic works in Kurdish, Dutch and English. The Glass Wall is Goran’s debut novel in the English language. As an ex-refugee, originally from Iraqi Kurdistan, Goran has personally experienced some of the protagonist’s hardships in this novel, including a few weeks living in a desert. Since he left Iraq in 1994, Goran has lived in several countries. He studied sociology in Amsterdam, where he was also the editor-in-chief of exPonto Magazine. After fifteen years living in the Netherlands, he moved to London in 2012 and has since spent most of his time writing, including a part-time freelance job reporting news from Iraq for the English language outlet INSIGHT. In 2019, he completed an MA in creative writing at Birkbeck, University of London.
Other publication:
-The Man Who Was A Tree, a novella in Kurdish (2010).
