A Novel Depicts the Plight of Women Refugees

The Good Deed, a novel by Columbia Journalism School Professor Helen Benedict, takes place in 2018 against the backdrop of an overcrowded refugee camp on the Greek island of Samos. The novel follows the stories of four women living in the camp, and an American tourist who comes to Samos to escape her own dark secret. When the tourist does a good deed, she triggers a crisis that brings her into conflict with the refugee women. Things escalate dramatically as each character struggles for what she needs.

Benedict discusses The Good Deed with Columbia News, along with what it was like to use the same research for both her novel and her nonfiction book, Map of Hope and Sorrow.

How did this book come about?

The Good Deed was born out of my visits to the Greek island of Samos, in the Aegean Sea just off the coast of Turkey, and the inhumane refugee camp that sits there amidst the island's incredible beauty. I first visited in 2018, and then went back many times, spending months and eventually years listening to the stories of people who had been forced to flee from danger in their countries, and to take the long and dangerous journey to Greece. These were people who had fled from the Middle East and several African countries.

The protagonists in my novel are from Syria and the Sudan. One is a white woman tourist, an American, who does a good deed, which goes seriously wrong.

Something else also inspired the story. Once I had decided to visit Samos—and knowing how many refugees drown off the little rubber dinghies in which they cross the Aegean—I became terrified that I would go swimming one day and find a drowned body. I took that terror, and turned it into the beginning of this story.

What was it like to revisit the same research you used for your nonfiction book, Map of Hope and Sorrow, for this novel?

Actually, it happened the other way around. I went to Samos originally to research the novel. But when I saw how drastic life was for the people there, I felt it was important to tell the world about the real situation as soon as possible.

I should also say that fiction and nonfiction play very different roles and come from very different impulses. Nonfiction gets across a clear message and a set of facts. Fiction allows one to plunge into the emotional heart of people's experiences. That is what I tried to do in The Good Deed.

Why did you decide to focus on women?

Women suffer even more than men when they become refugees. They experience more sexual violence, they drown more often, and they live in even more fear—for themselves, their children, their families. Yet, most refugee stories are about men. This is partly because men are often easier to find and to talk to, for a variety of reasons. Let me quote what one of the women in the novel, whose name is Nafisa, says about why she is telling her own story to a journalist:

"Who else was going to tell our stories, the stories of women refugees? The veiled figures forbidden to appear on camera or speak to strangers. Those deemed too ignorant to know what they are saying, or who were never taught the language or confidence to say anything at all. The ones who, like so many women in this camp here, hide all day in their containers or tents, afraid to talk to anyone or even to take a walk. Turn on the radio or television and we hear plenty of stories about men: men in refugee camps, men who have survived the boats battered by lethal seas, men who have hauled their dead babies from the surf. But where are the voices of the mothers and aunts of those babies, the daughters, sisters, and wives of those men?"

I wanted to give those mothers and aunts, daughters, sisters, and wives a voice.

Summer plans?

I am going as usual to an artist's residency, to work on my new book. In the past, I've gone to Yaddo, McDowell, the Blue Mountain Center, Ragdale, Ucross, and several other residencies, but I go most often to the Virginia Center for the Arts, which is where I am headed this summer.

Any reading recommendations?

Nadia by Christine Evans, a novel about a refugee from the Balkan Wars living in London. Mornings in Jenin, another novel, this one by Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa. Lastly, Roxy and Coco, a playful novel about social worker harpies, by Terese Svoboda.

What will you be teaching in the fall semester?

I will be teaching one of my favorite courses, "Social Justice Journalism With Style."