On Mount Gurugu, overlooking the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the North African coast, desperate migrants gather before attempting to scale the city's walls and gain asylum on European soil. Inspired by first-hand accounts, Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel has written an urgent novel, by turns funny and sad, bringing a distinctly African perspective to a major issue of our time.

Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel was born in 1966 in Equatorial Guinea. The Gurugu Pledge is his second novel to appear in English, and follows his 2015 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize-shortlisted debut By Night The Mountain Burns, which was based on his memories of growing up on the remote island of Annobón. He made headlines in 2011 by embarking on a hunger strike, in an anti-government protest. He now lives exiled in Barcelona.