Migingo
A Rock, a War, and the Weight of Nations
€4.40
DOWNLOADABLE E-BOOK
Immediately available to your e-mail
Migingo: A Rock, a War, and the Weight of Nations is a wildly engaging, darkly humorous deep dive into one of the world’s strangest geopolitical dramas – a 2,000-square-meter rock in Lake Victoria that has become an unlikely hotspot for international tension, human resilience, and fishy politics.
Welcome to Migingo Island: part fishing village, part diplomatic headache, and wholly surreal. Claimed by both Kenya and Uganda, this cramped, chaotic outcrop is home to hundreds of people, dozens of tin-roofed shacks, and a territorial dispute that refuses to die. With razor-sharp wit and a keen anthropological eye, this book explores how a speck of land with no trees, no roads, and barely any room to breathe became a flashpoint of sovereignty, survival, and stubborn pride.
From its murky geologic origins to the colonial cartographic blunders that doomed it to international limbo, Migingo traces the island’s transformation from unknown rock to overcrowded outpost, packed with fishermen, cats, preachers, bootleggers, and bureaucrats who show up when least expected and least wanted. Along the way, readers will encounter bar fights, border patrols, goat elections, and more than a few broken GPS units.
This is not just a book about a place – it’s a book about the madness of borders, the tenacity of people, and the absurd beauty of life squeezed into a place that barely exists. Equal parts travelogue, political satire, and anthropological fable, Migingo: A Rock, a War, and the Weight of Nations is a one-of-a-kind chronicle of the island the world can’t quite find on the map – but also can’t seem to forget.
For fans of: Jon Ronson, Bill Bryson, Anthony Bourdain (if he wore a diplomatic helmet), and anyone who enjoys laughing at the messiness of modern statehood.