The Darien Gap

Known in Spanish as "el infierno verde" or "the green hell," the Darien Gap has become a mass migrant graveyard as hundreds of thousands of refuge seekers from Venezuela to Afghanistan navigate its perilous precipices, rushing rivers, and all-encompassing mud in the hopes of eventually reaching the United States, still some 5,000 kilometers away. In the very first book on migration through the Darien Gap, Belen Fernandez puts the jungle trajectory in context, combining history, on-the-ground reporting, travelogue, memoir, and searing politico-economic analysis of a crisis that is itself largely Made-in-USA. (There's a bit of romance, too.) Engrossing and heartrending yet also highly entertaining, the book offers a poignant and compassionate indictment of structural inhumanity in a world predicated on institutionalized inequality - a world where the have-nots are condemned to risking their lives simply to have a chance at a better life. Fernandez's own travels in and around the Gap bring her into contact with countless refuge seekers, people smugglers, law enforcement officials, and other characters, all of whom serve to bring to life a place often associated with death and to shed light on one of the defining crises of the modern era.