Peter Showler’s Refugee Sandwich: Stories of Exile and Asylum is marketed as a current affairs/legal studies book. But really, it is two books in one: 13 fictional stories about refugees, and a foreword and afterword that offer a critique of Canada’s refugee system.
The stories are inspiring, rich in detail, and display a deft, writerly touch. The public policy essays that bookend them definitely do not share this creative flair, so the reader is left with an odd compilation clearly intended for two different audiences.
As the former chair of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, Mr. Showler is bound by privacy laws and so could not write a work of non-fiction, although, as he notes in the foreword, his fictional vignettes draw on his experience as a lawyer and IRB member. This is the great strength of the book, and because these vignettes are utterly believable it is not hard to get swept up in the dramatic, poignant but often quite ambiguous...
Marina Jimenez is an editorial writer at The Globe and Mail and has written extensively about immigration issues, including the live-in caregiver program. She is also the grateful employer of a part-time Filipina nanny.
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