[A] devastating, moving, and damning account ... This is a brilliant, layered testament to the circle of hell where vulnerable migrants find themselves trapped. Hayden never flinches in documenting human nature at its worst ... She builds the story around the plight of migrants, placing their unfiltered voices at its centre, adeptly threading their emotions through the sharp needle of her reporting ... My Fourth Time, We Drowned will leave you with little doubt that the system addressing the migrant crisis is not fit for purpose. We need a new discussion and approach to this preventable humanitarian cataclysm. Hayden’s book enriches that debate.
While the migrant trail takes Hayden as far as Liberia and Rwanda, her book is not, chiefly, a compilation of field dispatches. Her most startling reporting on this most global of subjects is done from her London flat. And yet Hayden’s account is no less immediate or distressing for her physical remoteness. It is indeed that very remoteness that affords her such intimate access to her subjects, most of whom know her only as a Twitter profile picture ... Hayden is scathing about agencies established, in principle, to aid refugees on the ground ... The book’s accumulation of abuses and neglect and pleading voices builds to a dizzying cacophony. No cry of pain is extraneous. Reading it can feel like being beseeched by a desperate crowd, but My Fourth Time, We Drowned is journalism of the most urgent kind.
A meticulous account of the horrifying North African refugee crisis ... The book layers first-person testimonies from refugees whom Hayden built relationships with during her inquiry with a comprehensive history of the extraordinarily complicated situation, as well as sharp critiques of the egregious inefficiencies and corruption Hayden witnessed within the NGO and United Nations agencies purporting to provide support ... Hayden is thorough in her reporting and conscientious of her role as an information conduit between isolated, defenseless refugees and the outside world; she is telling their story because they begged her to. This is a clear overview of the complex, disturbing situations of desperate people in desperate circumstances—crises that are still underreported. Painstaking details and a roundabout timeline make My Fourth Time, We Drowned informative, while the testimonies from the refugees themselves pulse with difficult truths that will shock (and maybe mobilize) conscientious citizens across the globe.
Despite her tireless courage, Hayden does not preach, and is deeply self-reflective about her reporting ... She gives voice to individuals without ever losing sight of the larger picture. People ask her how she can deal with such traumatic work and she 'can’t help feeling that this question is another way for people to avoid engaging with the bigger issue'.
Readers should not flinch from this emotion but look it directly in the face, and let Hayden’s vital reporting make them reconsider their view of what makes a moral world.
Hayden differentiates the terms migrant, refugee, and asylum seeker in a helpful terminology section...Along with the terminology note, a map showing the route would be helpful in subsequent editions ... a damning indictment of the EU and UN for their failure to act on behalf of the migrants and, from Hayden’s perspective, for being complicit in their suffering ... Diplomacy is a slow, complex business, but diplomatic efforts are not fully addressed in the book. Instead, Hayden dismisses high-level authorities as insensitive or willfully ignorant, often thwarting well-meaning staff on the ground. She gives little weight to what international organizations can reasonably be expected to accomplish in a failed state ... The focus of the book is the humanitarian crisis, but one also sees what it’s like to be a working journalist ... The evidence she presents in My Fourth Time, We Drowned is overwhelming. The facts argue for a more urgent and humane migrant policy.
A powerful, horrific account ... Hayden tells her story through deep exploration of legal papers, archives, and government data. Even more affective are her personal encounters and interviews with refugees themselves, whose situations, if anything, seem to be worsening ... The narrative is consistently harrowing, revealing the complexities within a global crisis that lacks an easy solution, especially as the numbers of refugees mount. An important contribution to the literature of forced immigration and humanitarian crisis.
