The Illegal

Keita Ali is an elite runner living in Zantoroland, a poor, fictional island that is erupting in political violence. When his father, a journalist, is murdered, Keita escapes to the wealthy nation of Freedom State—an imagined country much like our own. A stateless refugee without documentation, Keita must hide from the authorities even as he races marathons to support himself and ransom his sister who has been kidnapped. This tension-filled novel by the best-selling author of Someone Knows My Name is an astute exploration of dislocation, starting all over again, and the desperate need for home and community.

Nominated for NAACP Image Award 2017

“"Lawrence Hill manages that rare feat--a political thriller that never loses its heart. Keita's story will entrance you, enrage you, and finally make you want to reach right through the page and hug him. With skill and grace, Hill reminds us of our interconnectedness with displaced people around the world. This is a book about the liberating power of compassion. Don't miss it."”

"Hill eerily captures a tale that could be ripped from the headlines. The engrossing narrative focuses on the journey of Keita Ali . . . we feel his pain and walk in his shoes." -- Patrik Henry Bass - Essence
"A twisting, intricately woven yarn that spins itself out at an incredible pace. . . . Hill takes on the snarled, pressing issues of our moment in time. . . . His larger moral questions linger, provocatively." -- Carrie Snyder - Globe and Mail
"[A] remarkably prescient . . . gripping political thriller. . . . The reader will be left with lingering—and troubling—questions about how wealth and privilege is built by those are excluded from its fruits." -- Elizabeth Hoover - Dallas Morning News
"A sharp-edged, fresh and relevant take on immigration politics." -- Kerri Miller - MPR News
"Lawrence Hill manages that rare feat—a political thriller that never loses its heart. Keita’s story will entrance you, enrage you, and finally make you want to reach right through the page and hug him. With skill and grace, Hill reminds us of our interconnectedness with displaced people around the world. This is a book about the liberating power of compassion. Don’t miss it." -- Dolen Perkins-Valdez, best-selling author of Wench and Balm
"[A] taut political thriller. . . . Hill’s intricate, propulsive plot includes corruption, murder, and mayhem, and readers will be rushing to its fulfilling resolution." -- Publishers Weekly
"[Hill] has outdone himself. . . . His characters are authentic, and each is indispensable. . . . [The Illegal has] a captivating structure that allows the story to converge flawlessly and a rich, imaginative history." -- Library Journal

Lawrence Hill is the author of several novels including Someone Knows My Name, which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and was nominated in the United States for the Huston Wright Legacy Award. In 2015 Hill was appointed to the Order of Canada “for his contributions as an author and activist who tells the stories of Canada’s black community and of women and girls in Africa.” A graduate of the Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, he lives in Ontario, Canada.

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