Remember to also purchase a ticket for your seat at the Big Book Club with Lawrence Hill!

Don't be disappointed! Preorder your copy of The Illegal by Lawrence Hill and choose between pickup at The Big Book Club on Sept 15th or, should you wish to read it in advance, you can choose to pickup at Master's Bookstore anytime after you are notified that it has arrived in the store. Please await notification by phone or email before proceeding to the store for pickup. Lawrence Hill will be available for the signing of the book on the night of the event.

From the beloved author of the national bestseller The Book of Negroes comes “a book for our times” (Maclean’s) about family, identity and the strength of the human spirit

Keita Ali is on the run. Like every boy on the mountainous island of Zantoroland, running is all Keita’s ever wanted to do. In one of the poorest nations in the world, running means respect. Running means riches—until Keita is targeted for his father’s outspoken political views and discovers he must run for his family’s survival.

He signs on with notorious marathon agent Anton Hamm, but when Keita fails to place among the top finishers in his first race, he escapes into Freedom State—a wealthy island nation that has elected a government bent on deporting the refugees living within its borders in the community of AfricTown. Keita can stay safe only if he keeps moving and eludes Hamm and the officials who would deport him to his own country, where he would face almost certain death.

This is the new underground: a place where tens of thousands of people deemed to be “illegal” live below the radar of the police and government officials. Keita’s very existence in Freedom State is illegal. As he trains in secret, eluding capture, the stakes keep getting higher. Soon, he is running not only for his life, but for his sister’s life, too.

Fast moving and compelling, The Illegal casts a satirical eye on people who have turned their backs on undocumented refugees struggling to survive in a nation that does not want them. Hill’s depiction of life on the borderlands of society urges us to consider the plight of the unseen and the forgotten who live among us.