The Naked Don’t Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees

Aikins, an award-winning Canadian journalist, started reporting from Afghanistan and the Middle East in 2008. Eight years later, he accompanied his Afghan friend, translator, and colleague Omar on a dangerous overland journey to seek asylum in Europe. Aikins could pass as Afghani, and together the two endured long bus rides, scrambles on foot over borders, untrustworthy smugglers, brutal police, unstable small boats, and overcrowded miserable refugee camps in order to reach a safe haven in the European Union. This is a magnificent book that skillfully conveys the hope, disappointment, physical hardship, and human connections of Omar’s endeavor. Even more impressively, Aikins integrates knowledge of modern Afghan history, the failures of American policy, and the complexities of Afghan culture, religion, and family relations. As Aikins depicts it, Omar never loses faith that he will build a better life, even as war forces him to leave his home and breaks up his family. Aikins writes an absorbing record of an amazing adventure, framed by sympathy with Afghan lives shattered by the arrogance and ignorance of the United States and the other nations that invaded Afghanistan.