UNDER THEIR SKIN · BOOK I
Chike leaves Nigeria carrying a promise, a family he hopes to return to, and a road that will force him to discover how much a person can lose before he no longer recognizes himself.
THE FIRST JOURNEY
At eighteen, Chike leaves Nigeria behind with a family waiting for him to come home someday and the belief that Europe may offer the chance he can no longer find where he was born.
But between where he starts and the far shore lie deserts, borders, smugglers, hunger, violence, forced labor, and a sea capable of swallowing entire names without leaving a trace.
What begins as an escape toward a better life becomes a fight to protect something far harder to hold on to: who you are.
Chike Okoro sets out from Nigeria toward Europe carrying his family's hopes, the memory of his mother, and a promise that sounds simple enough: survive, make it there, and one day return.
Along the way he crosses the Sahel, Niger, Agadez, Algeria, Tamanrasset, Morocco, and the Strait of Gibraltar. He encounters exploitation, debt, fear, modern slavery, and loss. He also meets people capable of offering a piece of bread, a friendship, or a single act of humanity when everything around him has turned hostile.
Bakary, Aisha, Zola, and Moussa become part of a journey in which every encounter leaves a mark and every goodbye forces Chike to keep moving with a little less of himself.
UNDER THEIR SKIN — CROSSING THE DESERT AND THE SEA is not only a story about crossing borders. It is about identity, guilt, memory, survival, and everything a person learns to carry after there is nothing else left to take.
A journey told from the inside: fear, hope, guilt, hunger, loss, and the need to keep moving when stopping would seem easier.
The Sahel, Agadez, Tamanrasset, Morocco, Tangier, and the Strait form a physical route, but also an emotional one, where every border demands a different price.
A story about what survives when almost everything else is lost: family, names, memories, and the certainty that somewhere, someone is still waiting for you to come home.
A novel built so the reader does not watch the journey from a distance, but walks beside Chike and feels the weight of every decision.
— UNDER THEIR SKINThe destination may lie on the other side of the sea, but the real journey continues as long as something remains unfinished in the land left behind.
— CROSSING THE DESERT AND THE SEABEFORE YOU JUDGE
A story of migration, loss, survival, and humanity, told from the place where statistics become people again.
OFFICIAL SERIES SOUNDTRACK
Listen to the official UNDER THEIR SKIN soundtrack or switch to the Dance version of the series.