No One Is Prepared for a New Era of Global Migration

On the evening of September 8, 2020, the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos erupted in flames. The inferno was exacerbated by the camp’s close quarters and shoddy construction. As Lauren Markham writes in her new book, A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging, the fire sent thousands of refugees from countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq fleeing “to an empty stretch of road with no reliable food or water or medical care or bathrooms.” No one seemed to know how it started; it could easily have been an accident. But soon after, Greek authorities accused six young Afghan camp residents of setting the fire, and arrested them. (Markham writes that while reporting on the incident, she could find no “real evidence” that they were guilty.)

Markham’s book is about the contemporary migration crisis. As of 2022, have fled war, persecution, and, was a work of immersive reportage about two teenagers’ journey from El Salvador to the United States, and the lives they subsequently built in California.