Synopsis
What does it now mean to call yourself European? Who makes up this population of 750 million, sprawled from Ireland to Ukraine, from Sweden to Turkey? Who has always called it home, and who has newly arrived from elsewhere? Who are the people who drive our long-distance lorries, steward our criss-crossing planes, lovingly craft our legacy wines, fish our depleted waters, and risk life itself in search of safety and a new start?
In a series of vivid, ambitious, darkly visceral but always empathetic portraits of other people’s lives, Ben Judah invites us to meet them. Drawn from hours of painstaking interviews, these vital stories reveal a frenetic and vibrant continent which has been transformed by diversity, migration, the internet, climate change, Covid, war and the quest for freedom.
Laid dramatically bare, it may not always be a Europe we recognize – but this is Europe.
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Praise for Ben Judah's This Is London:
‘An epic work of reportage’ Guardian
‘Eye-opening’ Sunday Times
‘Opens readers’ eyes to the hardships experienced by many and ignored by most’ Independent
‘Shares Orwell’s appetite for documenting parts of society that are easily overlooked’ Spectator
‘Full of nuggets of unexpected information about the lives of others’ Financial Times
Details
15 June 2023
9781447276289Reviews
Imagine Ballard and Houellebecq teaming up on a Grand Tour, and you will have some idea of just how vivid, urgent and unsettling this superbly written book is.
A kaleidoscope of bright human experience. Moving, poignant and compelling – I devoured this in a day.
Deeply empathetic. Judah is an ace reporter with a novelist's love of character. He conjures people and place in a modern literary form he has made his own. There's no romance to this journey across Europe — but an abundance of story which will make you lurch between fascination, laughter and tears.
Ben Judah has the ability to listen and retell, see and describe, feel and convey so that the reader believes they were there and experienced it all first hand. Through personal stories, told to him by an array of unlikely heroes, Judah paints another Europe with intense and dramatic detail – a Europe that you may not recognize, but that you will look for every day having read this book.
