Immigration as a Mirage: Disillusionment and Immigrant Experiences in Sefi Atta's 'Twilight Trek'

The immigration of Africans to Europe to escape the hard economic realities in their countries has been a common trend over the years. The immigrants take risky undertakings across the Mediterranean Sea. This journey in quest for better life is full of ordeals as some immigrants lose their life and risk arrests for illegal treks. Many of the immigrants streak majorly from West and North Africa, with countries such as Nigeria, Libya, Senegal taking the lead: the major European immigrant recipient countries being among others Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. These immigrant experiences are the subject of Sefi Atta’s short story, ‘Twilight Trek’ analyzed in this article. I explore the representation of these ordeals and paradoxes through the prism of Edward Said’s Orientalism. More specifically, the concept of ‘otherization’ permeates my thoughts in the analysis of the short story. I posit that the short story represents immigration as a mirage and that through the treatment of the theme of disillusionment, the text negates the notion of immigration as a refuge.