Images From A Broken Mirror

About the Book

Tony Alum’s Images from a Broken Mirror is a factional account of the fractious, violent, vicious circle in which African immigrants are trapped in Europe. Set in France and Italy, the story dwells on the trafficking of Nigerian women to Italy.

Using the persona, Efe, a trafficked Nigerian girl, the author explores the pressures that come together to propel the men and women, young and old, from Africa to Europe.

Efe goes through the tedious and dangerous life of an immigrant commercial sex worker in Italy. She falls in love with Carlo, her first client. Carlo proposes marriage to Efe who accepts and becomes pregnant. However, Efe takes a decision, in a moment of frustration, that will change her destiny, that of Carlo and the unborn child.

Tony Alum has used this novel in a dialectical manner to x-ray the multifarious conflicts that dovetail to make life for the African immigrant in Italy a nightmare. Like most works of fiction, the author has reflected aspects of his experiences in Italy. The evidences of this closeness abound. For instance, the descriptions in the book are so graphically represented that one nearly forgets he is reading a work of fiction. While the plot of the story and its characterization are plausible, the author used dialogue especially in vernacular effectively. The author has also crafted a gripping suspense which makes the story racy that the reader arrives at the end almost breathless.

This is a book you are very likely to read more than once.

About the Author

Tony Alum graduated from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1988 at the height of inflation and unemployment under the Ibrahim Babangida’s military junta.

After his National service in 1989, he joined the exodus of migrants to Europe. In Padova, Italy, he started life as an itinerant vendor( vu compra). After years of hard work he progressed and became the Director of Allen Avenue Restaurant and the President of Association for African Integration, both in Tcrino. As a frontline Nigerian community leader he was counselor to many Nigerians, including the victims of women trafficking.

He returned to Nigeria in year 2000 where he is engaged in public speaking and professional writing. He is the President of Ivory Readership Club, the initiator and facilitator of Children Readers’ Club, a programme on the Network Service of Nigerian Television Authority, the initiator and coordinator of Lyrical Verses a session of reading, music and folktale rendition organized in collaboration with Radio Nigeria Enugu. Alum has successfully carried out many ground breaking programmes in the promotion of reading habit and youth in development in general. Images from a Broken Mirror is his first novel.

In his words, “….. Images from a Broken Mirror is my answer to the bleeding in my heart for the brutal murder of four Nigerian girls in one week which took place at Torino in 1995”.

Contacts:  tony@ivoryreader.org