Zadie Smith’s narrative was first published as a story in a 2013 digital issue of

and can still be accessed on the magazine’s website free of charge, before it was picked up by Hamish Hamilton and released as small hardcover book that same year.  It follows the protagonist Fatou, a young woman from Ivory Coast, who works under slave-like conditions for an abusive family in North London. As the story unfolds, the reader learns that she most likely resides in the United Kingdom illegally, after having braved a difficult journey through Libya and Italy before reaching London, which limits her prospects in Europe significantly. Smith’s timely piece on the hardships of (forced) migration focuses on the life-story of a single character in an almost

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Citation: Schuchter, Veronika. "The Embassy of Cambodia". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 June 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35875, accessed 31 October 2024.]