Two Blankets, Three Sheets by Rodaan Al Galidi

Two Blankets, Three Sheets by Rodaan Al Galidi (translated from the Dutch by Jonathan Reeder). Published in paperback 7th January 2020 by World Editions. Read December 2019.

Samir Karim trained as a Civil Engineer under the regime of Saddam Hussein, but was forced to flee the country in order to avoid conscription into the Iraqi army.

After wandering around Asia on false papers for seven years, he eventually heads for Europe and landing in Amsterdam in 1998, he immediately flushes his fake passport down the toilet and claims asylum.

What follows is nine years living in a dorm in an asylum centre, with 500 new housemates, trying to gain residency through the bureaucratic nightmare that is the Dutch asylum seeker process.

Two Blankets, Three Sheets takes its title from the list of items issued to every asylum seeker at the centre - two blankets, three sheets, a towel, a pillow and a pillowcase - which formed the only belongings Samir owned while living in the centre for all those years.

This is a semi-autobiographical work by Rodaan Al Galidi, who shared many of the experiences that Samir has to endure, but it also includes many of the stories of the other asylum seekers he met during his quest to seek safety in the Netherlands. It is a tale of survival and what goes on in the hidden world of the refugee, told with a unique sense of humour, and it will leave you with plenty to reflect upon.

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I don't think I have ever read anything quite like Two Blankets, Three Sheets before. I have consumed many a tale about refugees, learning about the reasons behind their decisions to leave their homelands and giving details of the harrowing experiences they suffer in order to find safety. But this book offers something different in a genre that has been crowded with fictional stories about asylum seekers in recent times - not least that it shows asylum seekers are made up of many different cultures, nationalities and creeds, even though they may all be lumped together under the one title "refugee".

Rodaan Al Galidi has a tale to tell about his own experiences as a refugee, and initially recorded it in the form of a series of letters to someone who had asked him about his time in a Dutch asylum centre. However, to publish this account as a conventional memoir would have been to expose his personal life to the eyes of the public, and stir up old memories which he, not surprisingly, found a difficult prospect.

Instead, Rodaan Al Galidi has chosen to write this book using a fictional character, and in doing so has been able to weave his own tale into the stories of many of the other refugees he has met over the years. This gives the reader a much wider take on the hidden lives of all sorts of different refugees - and much of it is pretty eye-opening!

"The narrator of the book is not me. It is someone I've called Samir Karim. This way I can still be the writer, and not the main character.

People might ask me if this is my story, to which I will say: no. But if I am asked if this is also my story, then I will say wholeheartedly: yes."

The book takes the form of a series of anecdotes about Samir's own journey, his life in the asylum centre and the stories of both other asylum seekers and locals he meets along the way - men, women and children. It tends to go back and forth between the time before Samir arrived in Amsterdam and his residency there, so we read a fair bit about his adventures in Asia too - which certainly add to the story and read very much like a humorous travelogue.

Many of the tales are horribly tragic and sad, but there is also a lot of comedy to be found in these pages. Samir is able to tell his stories with a satirical eye and his sense of humour (which we assume is also the sense of humour of our author) comes across very clearly. The subject matter may not be one which it is easy to laugh at, but you find yourself chuckling away many times while reading this book at the utter absurdity of the circumstances many of our characters find themselves in and the amusing misunderstandings that arise. This makes the book very easy to read, as the comic parts break up the tragedy of the very real situation portrayed, and I found myself racing through the not insubstantial 400 pages in double-quick time.

This book shines a light on a hidden world that most of us will hopefully never have to experience. A world of desperation, difficult decisions, dark humour, longing, culture shock, isolation, ridiculous bureaucracy, misunderstandings, tragedy, corruption and waiting...endless waiting. A world that many are able to negotiate successfully, whether legally or not, but also a world that is simply too much for some of the poor souls that endure it. A world made up of all sorts of different people, thrown together by circumstance.

‘You have to take care, Mr Karim,’ she said, ‘this is your future.’ With the word ‘this’ she picked up the report from the first hearing. I was amused at the idea that my future would be determined by a few sheets of paper, and not by my health, my happiness or my dreams. Or a never-ending barbeque on the beach, or travelling the world on a legitimate passport.

Rodaan Al Galidi certainly pulls no punches here, but the total honesty of our protagonist Samir and his ability to look at both sides of a situation is thoroughly endearing. I did sometimes have an issue with the way he interacts with some of the female characters, but his misdeeds were almost always the result of misunderstandings about the intentions of the women he met, which made them ludicrous rather than based on any predatory intent on his part. On the whole, it is Samir's kindness and perseverance that radiate from these pages, which is very impressive for a work which has been translated (much kudos to Jonathan Reeder, the translator).

Our author is far from shy about examining the behaviour of both the worthy and unworthy who try to seek asylum; the corrupt ways some may use to circumvent the process; the mishandling of valid cases for asylum; and the acceptance of blatantly false claims from others - to recognise that there needs to be a better way to help those who are seeking safety, while dealing with the undeserving at the same time, is unusual in a book about asylum seekers (especially one written by a past asylum seeker) and this was quite refreshing. I think this really opens up the debate about how to tackle the refugee problem fairly and compassionately.

Two Blankets, Three Sheets is a fascinating and inspiring read, that tackles the subject of asylum seekers in a compelling and informative way, while also being very accessible. This is a book that will have you thinking about it for long time after you have closed the cover.

I will leave the last word to Rodaan Al Galidi...

"This book is fiction for the reader who cannot believe it. But for anyone open to it, it is nonfiction. Or no: let this book be non-fiction, so that the world I had to inhabit for all those years will be transformed from fiction into fact."

Thank you to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in this blog tour and Rodaan Al Galidi, World Editions and Ruth Killick for providing me with a copy of this fascinating book.

Two Blankets, Three Sheets is available to pre-order now. Publication date: 9 January 2020 £12.99 Paperback original ISBN: 978-1-912987-02-3

From the book cover:

Amsterdam Airport, 1998. Samir Karim steps off a plane from Vietnam, flushes his fake passport down the toilet, and requests asylum. Fleeing Iraq to avoid conscription into Saddam Hussein’s army, he has spent seven years anonymously wandering through Asia. Now, safely in the heart of Europe, he is sent to an asylum centre and assigned a bed in a shared dorm—where he will spend the next nine years.

Taking its title from the ‘two blankets, three sheets, a towel, a pillow, and a pillow-case’ that constitute the items Samir is given on his arrival at the Asylum Centre, and are the only things he owns during his nine years there, this book is the story of how Samir navigates his way around the absurdities of Dutch bureaucracy while trying his best to get along with his 500 new housemates.


Told with compassion and a unique sense of humour, this is an inspiring tale of survival, a close-up view of the hidden world of refugees and human smugglers, and a sobering reflection of our times.

Critical acclaim for Rodaan Al Galidi

‘Al Galidi holds up a mirror to us all. A mirror that we should look into.’

―ADRIAAN VAN DIS


‘Two Blankets, Three Sheets is a valuable and rich novel about fear, uncertainty, arbitrariness, and hopelessness, written by someone who was, thankfully, able to use his new language as a lifebuoy.’ ―Tzum

‘For all its heavy themes―the tragedy of miscommunication, loss of identity and meaning of life, humiliation, and the incapacity to truly connect―it is also a very light and humorous book.’ ―Literair Nederland

About the author:

RODAAN AL GALIDI is a poet and writer. Born in Iraq and trained as a civil engineer, he has lived in the Netherlands since 1998. As an undocumented asylum seeker he did not have the right to attend language classes, so he taught himself to read and write Dutch. His novel De autist en de postduif (‘The Autist and the Carrier Pigeon’) won the European Union Prize for Literature in 2011—the same year he failed his Dutch citizenship course. Two Blankets, Three Sheets, already a bestseller in the Netherlands, is his most successful novel to date.

Jonathan Reeder, a native of New York and longtime resident of Amsterdam, enjoys a dual career as a literary translator and performing musician.