Soldiers and Kings: Survival and Hope in the World of Human Smuggling

"This book, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction, reads like a gripping novel. But it’s all fact, the product of years of embedded reporting by an anthropology professor. Jason De León’s page-turner took me deep into the lives of the maligned “coyotes” who smuggle immigrants into the U.S. – wait, could they be victims too? – and through intimate details about their lives, their jobs and their world, what I thought I knew was turned upside down. The book walks with people we just want to see as the villains and seriously complicates the narrative."